Exposition and Declaration of the Faith

II. Profession of Faith.

^A Likewise, both the Holy Spirit and each of the two proceed equally, so that the Father is at once the Father of the Son, and the producer of the Spirit. For we name the things above us by those things that are akin to us, because, by reason of their excellence, it cannot be defined how each one relates to the other, or how each conceives within itself what is appropriate for the other, and the true reason of its existence.

III. The Trinity of persons, the one God. Therefore, the movement is one, and the splendor is one: and they are not three separate movements, but one and the same movement: which consists in this, that the Father, who is outside of time, wills through the Son, who is His Word and subsisting wisdom, and through the Spirit, ^B He brings his production to perfection: just as our mind, by its natural impulse, moves its natural reason by thinking in order to manifest that which it has thought, and to bring that to completion. Now, our mind is not lacking in these things; because it is impossible for our mind to be devoid of reason, or of a spirit that proceeds openly. Wherefore the Father wills and understands through His Son, and whatever He thinks through Him, He does, and through the Spirit He brings to perfection all things that He has created. God the Father perpetually encompasses within Himself His Word, which is from Him, always begotten not without delight, a ^C person endowed with perfect will. Therefore, He never ceases to be the Son, and the Holy Spirit always attends with the Word; because the Son without the Spirit and the Spirit without the Son lacks the perfection by which He is expressed and exists. For our God was never at any time without His Word, nor was the Word without the Spirit; lest He who is perfect should ever be destitute of perfection. For created things, when they had existence, were previously lacking it: because when they were not, they arrived at this, that they might be. But the matter is not so in the divine nature, nor does any new production take place in the Trinity. Every word is a substantial virtue of the intellect. And not that alone, but the virtue by which it is produced is itself the way ^D to producing the spirit. Yet the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one God. Each of the three is a perfect God and a perfect hypostasis, and therefore there is one and a triune God. Which is evident from this, that each of them, when one treats of his distinctness, is perfect God, because he is a perfect hypostasis, and the Trinity, where it is understood together with the other, is one God. Indeed, it does not befit the divine nature to be without generation, or without any perfection. For in what way would He who is destitute of generation be perfect? Nor do men distinguished by learning contradict these things. Therefore, He begot the Son, and produced the Spirit by the same power, so that God might be one and each of the three might be a perfect person, lest divinity be a property without perfection; or lest God be perfect, consisting of those imperfect things. Rather, in the perfect Trinity, God is one, superior and prior to all perfection [ὑπερτέλειος καὶ προτέλειος].

IV. The diverse meaning of the word Spirit. Evil is not a substance, contrary to the Manichaeans. — But although Spirit is one name, it nevertheless has a diverse meaning. For it signifies something living that lacks matter; whence Scripture said: God is a Spirit. It also denotes at times the air and the motion of the air, or wind: and likewise an angel and a soul and the intellect which is a part of the soul. Finally, it signifies that which is the vehicle of the Word, according to which meaning the Holy Spirit is named: as indeed the sacred Scripture says: By the Word of the Lord the heavens were made, and by the Spirit of His mouth all their virtue. But the mouth of God is by no means a bodily member, nor is the Spirit a breath that escapes and is thin: just as neither is the Word of God that which is spoken by a bodily tongue, emitting it into the air: because it is impossible for God to have anything contrary to His essence. God, however, because, as we have said, He has no beginning, of the state of things…

wished to perform creation through His Word, ^A which is without beginning, and also through the Spirit, who Himself has no beginning. But to say that God is without principle (ἄναρχον) signifies two things: namely, that He has no cause, and no beginning in time. And the Father is without principle according to these two meanings; but the Son and the Spirit do not have a beginning in time, because the Creator of time neither had time, nor was He subject to time; yet they are not without cause. For the Father is their principle, from whom they have existence, though not as if they were after Him. They possess all that the Father possesses by substantial possession. He Himself wills without beginning, because He cannot be changed; and He Himself knows without beginning whatever pertains to us: these He defines without beginning as if they did not pertain to us; He defines them, I say, as if they did not pertain to us, without time. But those things which He has predetermined and defined, He brings each one to pass in its own time. For whatever He has predetermined, that is good. For evil is not a substance, nor is it any thing that exists; since it cannot be that evil is produced from good, just as, on the contrary, neither is good from evil, nor a mixture of both: since both are contraries, and neither has a correspondence of love with the other, nor companionship. It is utterly impossible that two principles should be without beginning: since the unity of nature is the principle of duality. Moreover, they are circumscribed by their own proper places, nor are they mingled, so that the beginning of one might pertain to the end of the other. Indeed, they are not joined by any society, and they are mutually adversarial. Who, therefore, would be the included and the includer, the hiding and the hidden, the defeating and the defeated? May God avert that we should adopt such dogmas!

V. Evil is a defection from natural obedience. It arises from the perverse use of free will. — Therefore our God, God is one, as we have shown, lacking any beginning; and we say that malice is nothing else but an accident, and an act deviating from the law which God implanted in rational nature [in its acts and its hypostasis], and that it exists in the things which exist as a defect of the natural work, no differently than blindness in the body. Moreover, this is found only in creatures endowed with reason. And this is evident, because the divine nature is not subject to variation, nor to sin, but always holds one and the same state. Furthermore, brute beasts which are destitute of reason have not received a law, and neither law nor transgression can be found among them. But creatures in whom variation is found, together with the power of free will, since they have enough knowledge of those things which they ought to flee, have received a law for action: because it is not fitting for creatures endowed with reason to behave like brute beasts. Wherefore, they have been adorned with the faculty of free will: because free will is a certain perfection; fitting for a rational nature, so that it might not be subject to the affections of brutes, since it has the honor of being in the image of God. For who that does not have power over himself could be the image of God? ^B Yet to have free will is a good for a rational creature, whether it uses it well or not. Wherefore God granted His law to him who is of free will, so that by fulfilling it he might know that he is under his Lord, and not exalt himself beyond measure and his own strengths, but be led by the aid of the law in his acts, as through a light by which he might be directed. For God desires this only good, that he should humble himself before the power of his Creator, and through the conjunction of his thought with his Prince, become partaker of blessedness. But when he did not understand the dignity of his free will, with which he was gifted, but was compared to foolish beasts, by doing what is not fitting, malice occurred in his mind; because it is incumbent upon every servant to render obedience to the commands of his master. For free will is not some evil thing, nor is it the cause or occasion of evil: but just as the law is just and holy, so that there should be no sin in it, so free will is some good of a rational creature. And this is made manifest, because freedom of will necessarily belongs to the rational nature, as Gregory of Nyssa teaches. For whoever is rational by his own nature, he is also of free will: and to him who is not of free will, no law was given. But he to whom no law is given, in him no transgression is found. Wherefore the Great Basil, a man full of God, says that free will is the origin of sin: not that it may be of its nature that vice should arise from it, so that it is necessary for him who is of free will to admit vice, because he is master of himself; but when he uses it perversely, that perverse use is reckoned as sin. Moreover, negligence is also a cause of evil, because it disposes one to do that which is forbidden to us. Wherefore evil is not from God, nor is it a substance, but an accident and a defection from natural obedience, and from that natural power granted to the rational creature over those animals lacking reason. And such offspring and daughter is [a result] of perversity in discerning judgment, and sin is ignorance. What learned men have handed down on this matter has this one meaning.

VI. The creation of man. Origen is touched upon first. Man consists of two natures. — I believe, therefore, in one God the Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit, of one substance, of one will, of one power, of one operation, of one lordship, of one kingdom, without beginning and death, eternal, three perfect hypostases, each one perfect God, and three perfect persons one God, ^{C D}

^A regarding this Creator and miraculous Maker, who produced created things out of nothing existing. Nor do I confess that rational souls existed beforehand: but, as Scripture hands down, that God created man. Yet man is not soul alone, nor body alone, but that which consists of both: wherefore God took dust from the earth. For out of the matter which He had previously created and produced, He fashioned his body, and breathed into him by His breath a soul endowed with reason and intelligence, in His own image, and fitted man together from these two, a single, living, composite person, possessing in himself two natures; because the essence of the body and of the soul is not one, but one nature is one thing and another another, whose essence is not one; and since one nature is one thing and another another, they are by no means one. This becomes evident because our body of its own nature has neither movement nor sensation. This, indeed, death makes certain, by which, when body and soul are separated, each of them is shown to be a certain single nature. Therefore, since man consists of two natures, he has a double nature in himself, and as such he is mortal and immortal, visible and invisible, conquerable and unconquerable, divisible and indivisible, hidden and apparent; he who is able to be acted upon and to suffer and be changed in accordance with either, and he who is capable of pain and is afflicted according to the contrary part. Man, therefore, consisting of two natures, is one composite person; although the nature of man is called one composite nature, whereby one species is composite, encompassing the composite persons of men, and the essence of one is the essence of the other, because each of their hypostases is composed of body and soul.

^B VII. Man subject to law from creation. The fall of man. I confess that this man was placed by God in the garden of delight, and had received from God a law, by which he might understand himself to be subject to his Lord. This law, moreover, is the knowledge of obedience, a shining lamp by which he might be directed to that which is suitable for him. Because it is fitting that, since he is composed of soul and body, he should not easily go against this, but should distribute the goods of his soul, of which the author and teacher is He by whom it was created, who has care for it, and who alone knows all things. He does not, therefore, want man to be the judge of his own work, nor, even if he has arrived at the peak of perfection, to care with the utmost solicitude for the body with which he is mingled: but He willed that he should follow His law without slackening, so that he might not wander and deviate from that which is incumbent upon him to do: nor did He wish him to have good and evil in his own nature, but granted that he might know both. Wherefore He willed that he might know the good through His divine law, lest he should be deceived by corporal things because of their enticements. Seeing him, therefore, as his protector, not sufficiently careful, ^C he envied him, and through envy cast him down: who, with his intellect brought low, rebelled against the law of his Creator, and defiled his own body with filth. By which it came to pass that he was compared to senseless beasts and became like unto them: he became liable to miseries, and was expelled from paradise as a rebel, proud and miserable; because it was not suitable that evil should be immortal. Surely he who had burned with jealousy toward him knew very well that as long as he remained obedient to his Creator, and was joined to his Lord, he would arrive at the possession of virtues and the perfection of them, enriched with a perfect, right, and pleasing intellect, and in his state would be superior to the desires of the flesh, so that he might be a participant of the tree of life, that is, of incorruption. And on this part the envy of the serpent was the goad, so that he who had already rebelled might also become liable to the sentence.

VIII. The kindness of God toward man. The Incarnation of the Word. But our God, since He is kind by His nature, did not endure to see man whom He had made insolently harassed by the devil, who through fraud had subjected him to hard slavery. The Lord spoke to our fathers in many ways and in various modes through the prophets, and in the latest ^D times, just as He had promised to our fathers, He sent His only-begotten Son, born of a woman, that He might succor man who was refractory to the divine law. Because man, the law of God having been violated, had become mortal on account of the condemnation, He fulfilled the law with that perfection which could fall to man, and solved the judgments of human nature. 667 Since, therefore, He had a Father in the heavens, He was born of a Virgin woman without a father. Truly it could not happen that one person could be born from two fathers. Wherefore, just as it was pleasing to His Father, and in the manner of which He Himself knows, the Son of God, without conjugal union, was conceived from the womb of the Virgin Mary, who, just as is stated in Scripture, was of the root of Jesse, of the tribe of Judah and the family of David, and born from the seed of Abraham. Furthermore, He was made flesh without change, and dwelt among us: He was made flesh endowed with a rational and intelligent soul, a perfect man, without sin; because sin does not pertain to the constitution of human nature: He was made flesh without conversion or change into flesh, and without confusion, by which He would have been made some other thing from two other things. For His essence remained the same as the essence of the Father, without any change, the true God, nor did the divine nature admit any conversion, remaining that which it was, nor confusion, nor addition: but He preserved the body which He took without change, as the condition of human nature required. He was made flesh, that is, He assumed flesh; and He who was the Son of God was made the son of man, with the property of filiation preserved immune from alteration and

^A subsistence of the Word, which became for it an hypostasis, just as it were the principle of subsistence and the primary origin of its existence. Wherefore His body was deified by receiving the penetration [perichoresis] of the deity into itself, by the operation of which it was filled. For the Word affected it with the properties of the deity, so that it might be perforated, as it were, by divine wounds. But the pain of His body did not reach the nature of the divinity itself: for this reason it was made life-giving, while the divinity remained impassible: just like, naturally, a red-hot sword—since it is one, not two swords, and thus one hypostasis—possesses within itself two natures; for the nature of the iron does not pass into the nature of the fire, nor the nature of the fire into the nature of the iron, but each, as long as they are conjoined, remains in its own nature, even ^B after the union. And yet the glowing sword causes burning and cutting; for it has received a solid nature from the iron, and a subtle nature from the fire. But the cutting is not of the fire, nor the burning of the iron, even if they are together, but each produces its own act. Thus Christ and the Lord is one, although He has diverse natures, namely deity and humanity; His deity did not cross over into the nature of the body, nor the body into the nature of the Word; but each after the union remained free and immune from conversion and mutation. Furthermore, Christ being one, He puts forth the works of His divinity, and the works of humanity; since He embraces within Himself an uncreated nature, devoid of matter or corruption, as well as a created nature, material and corruptible. ^C Likewise Christ signifies one thing according to nature, in the part where He performs the works of the deity, and another thing again where He performs the works of humanity. For each nature acts what is proper to itself with the communion of the other. Appropriately, therefore, we say Christ has two natures [(2)] after the union, because the operations which are not repugnant according to their condition.

NOTES

(2) We say Christ has two natures. The Monophysites and Monothelites are beaten here just as by the Damascene; but long ago Cyril of Alexandria himself had pronounced in scholion 4 concerning the incarnation that the name of Christ admits neither definition, nor brings forth the essence or nature of anything, like the name of man, or horse, or ox, and the like: *The name Christ has neither the power of definition, nor does it signify what the essence of anything is, just as, for instance, man, or horse, or ox; but it provides a declaration rather of a thing being acted upon in some way towards something,* so that it might provide the meaning of a thing which is acted upon in some way. In which place, ^D indeed, he was suffocating the heresy urged against him by the Nestorians, which afterwards Eutyches and other Monophysites maintained. For if the name Christ, by which two united natures are signified, does not express some essence, it follows entirely from the concurrence of the divine and human natures that one nature was not made in Christ, but only a person. I have found, however, that this scholion was not cited by any of those who wrote against the Monophysites, except by Saint Maximus in the letter to John the Cubicularius, *On right dogmas and against Severus*, p. 276, in the book *On the two wills*, p. 109; and in the former place Combefis wrote in the margin: *These things do not occur in the existing scholia of Cyril*. The testimony of that most learned man was at issue in the case, but in the annotations to cap. 3 of the book *On the faith*, I had added that this scholion appeared to be more recent than Cyril; for, as I was just saying, although it was most explicit, I remembered it was cited by no other Catholic writer against the Monophysites and Severians, just as it was not read by me in the works of Cyril. But not only do these words appear at the beginning of the first Cyrillian scholion on the incarnation in various editions, both of the holy doctor and of the Ephesian synod, but also in Marius Mercator, who translated it, just as the rest which follow, into the Latin language. Furthermore, in the letter to John the Cubicularius, those former words: *The name Christ has neither the power of definition, nor indeed the essence of anything*, belong to Cyril: but what follows, *but the hypostasis of the Word*, etc., are the observation of Maximus, the Alexandrian doctor, referring concisely, which Combefis therefore wrongly printed in italics as if they were Cyril's. Cyril wrote the Scholia on the incarnation of the Only-begotten after the peace with the Orientals was established, and for that reason he explains and defends in them with greater industry as one person of Christ, so two natures.

^A For the operations of one nature must be said to be entirely one. And operations which lack any affinity according to natural condition are altogether of different natures. Indeed, what does the conjunction of His deity and humanity signify, if not a union according to hypostasis, which is not a property but a mode of the dispensation of Him who humbled Himself to deliver the whole world? Furthermore, the Word was made flesh, because He united the body to Himself in such a way that it became a hypostasis for the body, with this exception only: that the deity was not a participant in the operations of the body. His body was also deified, yet it did not become a hypostasis to the deity; nay rather, the body had its own proper hypostasis—one of the hypostases of the deity—and was thus made a partner of the excellences of divinity; ^B because it lives and is adored together with Him as God, not on account of its own nature, but because it is the body of the Word. Wherefore we say that the incarnation of the Word is not the incarnation of the deity: that is, the incarnation of the divine person is not the incarnation of the divine nature, because the deity cannot admit the properties of the body. We say also that the deification of the human nature is not the deification of the human person; because the body does not possess a person for itself, distinct from the person of the Word; but the hypostasis of our God the Word, existing in its substance, was united to the flesh, which existed in His own person, and the person of the Word assumed the nature of the flesh, and the union of the natures was effected in one hypostasis. Wherefore He Himself is a composite hypostasis, for had He assumed a person, what sort of single sonship would there have been? Divine sonship and human sonship are surely not one sonship, and natural and adoptive sonship are not one and the same sonship. Indeed, if He had assumed a person, we would be worshipping ^C four persons in total, and we would be worshipping a "new God," who by His own nature would not be God. If He assumed a hypostasis and remained in a hypostasis, what would have been the mystery hidden from the ages? Or how could He have done wonders? For He dwells in us and walks among us, and we are the temple of the living God; and even if He assumed one hypostasis, He surely delivered one hypostasis: but if He assumed the nature that would subsist in His own person, He surely brought salvation to our entire nature. But if, again, there is one person for divinity and humanity, this will truly be that stupendous, unusual, and hidden mystery. But how can it be that there is one and another hypostasis, one of deity and another of humanity, one without a father and another without a mother, and yet be one Son? Yet even if He is the Son of God by nature, and he is a son of God by adoption, the Son is one; just as all of us, together with the Son of God, are one son. Yet it has been said to us: "I have said, You are gods, and all of you are children of the Most High." ^D How, however, will the divine and human person be of one rank, when the divine nature and the human nature are not of the same order, nor is their dignity one, nor is their adoration the same? And this is manifest, because we adore the body of the Lord, not on account of its nature, but on account of the hypostasis of the Word, by which it is possessed. Wherefore it behooves us to adore Him, not insofar as He is man, but insofar as He is God. For if the union were made according to pleasure, or love, or command, it would plainly not be a union into one Son. For of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, the pleasure is one, the will is one, the operation is one, the command is one, the order is one, and there is one union of the three, but not according to one hypostasis. The Word, the Son of God, and the Word made flesh, are one, because the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are not one person. However, in Christ our Lord, because the hypostasis is one, and the natures are joined without alteration and confusion, or without disjunction, uncreated and created, impassible and passible, the natural differences are expressed through the properties of the natures. But can it truly be said that of two natures commingled and confused, there are two natures, when they are confused? And when two natures are named after the union, how can it not be possible that they be called two natures in a union according to hypostasis without confusion? I, therefore, do not confess there to be one nature in Christ after the union: I acknowledge a perfect distinction of natures, even though they are united. For quantity enters into all parts with distinction. And it is not possible that one thing should differ from itself, insofar as it is one: just as a person does not differ from itself by personal distinction, however composite it may be. Wherefore, regarding one nature, even though it be composite, it cannot be said to differ from itself according to its nature, by a distinction by which it might be discerned. And this is manifest, because the body and the soul in a human being differ from one another and are two natures, not one; and the human persons, or individuals, are one species. When, however, they have an essential difference by which one differs from another, it is called one nature, not two natures. But where I say there are two natures in Christ, I do not confess them to be disjunct, but united; because number is not the cause of division. But number, as it is a sign of the distinction of persons, so it is a mark of quantity, whether things are united or separate. And this is evident from the fact that three men are said to be united in the definition of their nature, when the hypostases are distinguished according to personal properties. But even soul and body have two united natures, according to hypostasis, that is, but distinct according to the quantity of the natures.

Hence it is that we say the Son of God, who is one from the Holy Trinity, has two natures which are united according to hypostasis, with a mutual circumincession of one into the other, ^A while preserving the boundary of their own proper difference by the natural quality of each according to its own signification, and while preserving to each its natural definition without mutation or confusion. Nor do we say that the Son is one and then another, because there is not one nature. If there were two persons, the Son himself would by no means be one, and thus we would be worshipping four. But if the nature is one, the essence of the Father would altogether be his essence, nor would our essence be his essence. Otherwise, we would be consubstantial with God the Father. For those things whose essence is of itself one, are also one of themselves and truly one nature; the essence of one is the essence of another, so that one nature is not the essence of diverse natures.

X. Two wills and operations.

I confess, therefore, that Jesus Christ our Lord is one hypostasis, ^B and that two natures are united in his hypostasis; because the union of his two natures in one hypostasis holds a middle place between commixtion and division, and participates in both; because it guards and preserves the unity, and also the existence of the united natures, and their discrepancy: nor are the natures so distinguished that they are separated; but indeed they remain in every way entire. But if they remain entire, they are altogether numbered. Nor do we say after the union there is a distinction of nature, but of natures. But when we say two natures, we do not therefore say one, since indeed there are two; because number has no place in one nature. But those who say two perfect natures after their union are necessarily compelled to confess that there are two natures. For he who mentions two natures does not speak of one alone, but of many. ^C And yet this is impossible, unless you consider them to be diverse things. For they are indeed numbered because they are diverse, and they are diverse in that aspect in which they are numbered. And it is of the account of two natures that they be numbered when they are united. Nor are they divided in any way, unless the intellect in its own conception divides that which in reality is not divided. But when I confess that there are two natures, I certainly understand them to be perfect and without any defect, so that one is perfect in divinity, the other in humanity. For it is certain that the divine nature was entirely united with the whole human nature, in one of the persons of the deity. But when I say that the divine nature was entirely united with the whole human nature, I do not understand all the persons. And this is certain, because in all the persons of the deity the whole nature of the deity is seen without defect, and in any given person of the human persons, the whole nature of humanity is seen entire. For Christ did not assume the body alone, nor the soul alone, but ^D he assumed a body animated by a rational and intelligent soul, and therefore in him I confess two minds, divine and human. For it is certain that the uncreated intellect was united to the created intellect, and an intellect that does not know how to suffer was united with an intellect capable of suffering, which was a middle point between the subtlety of his divinity and the thickness of his body, just as Gregory the Theologian (4) has handed down. Furthermore, he is endowed with two wills (5), because no nature is found devoid of operation. For this life is the first thing in human nature, and even its—

operation, as well as its intellect, its touch, the movement of its rising body, its animation, its desire, its anger, its senses, and the appetite for food and drink for the sake of this life, and every concept by which he might sense and wish, as master of himself, in his own rational nature; because the will, enjoying the freedom of choice, is the sense of our rational and vital intellect. For the faculty of anger and the appetite are senses lacking in reason in irrational animals; but in our mind, the sense itself is rational, self-possessed, and of free choice, and such is the will itself. For a rational nature is master of that which lacks reason and intelligence. He who is master of himself rules his soul and body; but not, at the same time, his God, of whom he is by his very nature a servant, and whom he obeys. Yet obedience is the free subjection to the will of another, even if the will desires what is natural. Since this was given to all men, it was accepted by the Lord, so that he might will that which belongs to humanity; because it was absolutely necessary that our Lord should receive what had been implanted in our nature by God. For whatever he himself granted to us, this he assumed, because he was made in all things like us, except for sin. But none of us, being endowed with freedom of choice, wills sin; rather, he wills that will which deviates from the divine law. And this is not the use of our natural free will, but is a transgression of the natural use declining from nature. Wherefore our Lord had a human will, which would not be opposed to the divine will. For indeed he assumed a nature that would not be moved solely by the impulse of humanity: since the determination belonged to his own person. Since, therefore, his divine hypostasis was one hypostasis, both of divinity and of humanity, it was not moved by an impulse contrary to itself, but by a natural motion: and because as a man he was endowed with free choice, his will followed the divine will of his Father. For that reason, we say that there are two wills in him, which are not opposed by mutual deliberation, but by their natures: because each nature wills and acts that which is proper to it ^A in communion with the other. The Word acts and wills as God, the same being that which is proper to divinity, and he himself acts through himself, and wills, in that part which is human, that which is proper to the flesh. Yet each operation is one and the same, as the human will follows the divine will insofar as it is of free choice: whereby it happens that the divine operation acts upon his human operation. Therefore, each nature exerts its operations by its own natural property, and the Word, through both of them, on account of the union of each—neither being repugnant to the other—wrought our salvation. For he exerted his human will in natural exercise, by obeying the divine will to which it was ^B linked. He neither committed sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth, and therefore he was not subject to death, because he was immune from sin, as one who was God and man; who through both natures took away our sins. He also bore our diseases, and took upon himself our death, although he was not subject to death, because he could not sin. Therefore he was made the first-fruits of our resurrection, having loosed the pains of death, and raising us up with himself, and placing us in the highest heavens at the right hand of his Father God.

XI. Baptism, judgment, eternal life. I confess, moreover, one baptism for the repentance, through the goodness and grace of God our Lord, who said to baptize them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, ^C and that they should keep his commandments. For he says: "Teach them to observe everything that I have commanded you," and that there will be great joy in heaven for one sinner who repents. Likewise: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." I confess, moreover, the resurrection of the dead; the resurrection, I say, of the body, by which the soul will be made blessed, and at the same time possessor of the inheritance. I confess that there is judgment and retribution, and that Jesus Christ will be the judge, who will come to judge each one according to his works. Finally, I confess one eternal life, which will have no end, and that there will be perpetual punishment just as eternal life ^D [NOTE: translation omitted as instructed]

^A will have no end, in accordance with the justice and goodness of God, to whom belong power and mercy.

XII. Six general councils. Furthermore, I admit six great councils, at which the bishops of the whole world were present. The first council, which was held in the city of Nicaea in the time of Constantine the Great, the emperor, against Arius, who divided the Godhead. Next, that which was convened at Constantinople before Theodosius the Great because of Macedonius, the enemy of the Holy Spirit. Then, that which followed, which met at Ephesus under the auspices of Pulcheria, whose outcome was auspicious, against Nestorius, a man who worshipped humanity and was of Jewish disposition. That again which was collected in the city of Chalcedon before the Emperor Marciano, whose religion was sincere, and before Pulcheria, of whom mention has just been made because of her remarkable equity, against Eutyches the monk and against Dioscorus, who conflated natures and [were against] the innovation of those who, in the faith, confounded natures. Likewise, the council which occurred at Constantinople in the presence of the great Emperor Justinian, against Origen, a man of erratic opinion, and against Diodorus and Theodore, the preceptor of Nestorius, and also against the epistle of Ibas. Finally, the sixth council, which was convened again at Constantinople, which is the new Rome, that holy, great, and most excellent one of the bishops of the world, in the presence of Constantine the new Christian, against Sergius, Cyrus, Peter, Paul, and Macarius, who preached only one will in Christ, and against those who denied both wills, saying that there is a nature without a will. These, moreover, are the six holy great councils, to which I assent, ^B and I confess that their decrees are pure, which God handed down to them. I accept what they accepted, and I reject what they rejected, and I judge them worthy of perpetual curses. Furthermore, I admit the New Testament, as I acknowledge the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit preached and speaking in all those things as one God. I also honor the servants of God who have been pleasing to Him from the ages; namely, the just, the patriarchs, the prophets, the apostles, the martyrs, the shepherds, [and] the holy men, who, by purging their minds, rejected from the sermons of truth every adulterated and superfluous opinion. I execrate the innovations which have been made concerning the faith from the time of Simon Magus until now; and those which the stubborn power of Satan has poured forth, involving its associates in impure discourses.

XIII. Conclusion. I confess that I receive the holy canons of the holy apostles, the canons also of the holy synods, and the canons of our holy Father Basil the Great, and that I will observe with all my strength those things which the Holy Spirit spoke through them, leading the flock which God has committed to me through you, free from all disgrace, damnable crime, and opposition. This is my profession, by which I shall be made worthy to stand before the tremendous tribunal of Christ, and through it obtain the kindness of my Lord. For I do not hope that I shall be found just because of my works, but through faith in Jesus Christ our Lord, and through His mercy, through the intercession of the Mother of our God and of ^C all the saints, and through your holy prayers; because to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit is glory unto the ages of ages.

671 In the same Arabic codex I found a part of the Oration of John Damascene concerning images, somewhat different from the editions, which I did not think should be omitted entirely, especially on account of a certain passage of Chrysostom, from the homily on Lazarus which has not yet appeared among his works.

It is entirely fitting to paint the passion and miracles of Christ our Lord and Savior, so that when my son asks me what that image represents, I may answer that our God, ^D the Word of God, became man, and in this way entered into the Jordan, not for the sake of the Israelites, but so that our nature might return through Him to eternal happiness, through whom it was exalted from the lowest parts of the earth, and sat on the throne of God above every principality. But perhaps an adversary will say: For that reason it is permitted for us to make images of Christ and His mother, and this should suffice for you. To whom we will answer that this sentiment is full of insult. For you declare yourself an enemy of the saints. For since you make images of Christ, but not of the saints, you openly signify that you abhor the images of the saints. But while you strip the saints of their honor, you admit a crime which no one before this dared to commit, namely that you make an image of Christ because He is worthy of glory, yet you reject the saints, because their effigies are of those who, allegedly, deserve no honor, and thus you accuse the truth of lying, which says: I live, says the Lord, who honors those who honor me, and those who glorify me I will glorify (1 Reg. 2:30). And the Apostle: Therefore you are now no longer a servant, but a son: but if a son, then an heir of God through Christ (Rom. 8:17). And: If we suffer, we shall also be glorified with him (I Cor. 15:6). Therefore you ought not to declare war on the images of the saints. For says John the Apostle...

^A who reclined upon the breast of the Lord, that we shall be like him. But just as iron which is in the fire becomes fire, not by nature, but by conjunction with fire, by burning and contact, so the flesh became God, not by its own nature, but by contact and affinity: because by union with the person of the Word and by the contact of the divine nature, not by conversion, it became God. Moreover, God did not anoint it as he did some one of the prophets, but by the presence of the whole anointing. But that the saints also have been made gods, the Prophet signified with these words: God stood in the synagogue of gods [*]. For God, standing in the midst of the gods, discerns the dignities and merits of each, as Gregory the Theologian has interpreted.

David, God commanded, should build a temple through Solomon his son, and this he chose for himself to dwell in: and subsequently Solomon built the temple, in which he fashioned Cherubim, as is written in the books of Kings. The Cherubim he overlaid with gold, and he carved on its walls round about, within and without, images of Cherubim and palm trees. He did not say he adorned the walls, but that in the circuit of it he had represented likenesses of bulls and oxen and trees and pomegranates. Is it not then more fitting and seemly to adorn the walls of the Lord's temple with images of saints than with cattle and trees? The Law indeed forbids us to make any likeness; and yet Solomon fashioned images of Cherubim, and bulls, and lions: not in order to express the likeness of God, with the law warning that no likeness of him should be made; but we by no means express the likeness of God when we ^C make images of the saints. And just as through the blood of animals and the ashes of a heifer the temple and the people were cleansed, so now through the blood of Christ, who, undergoing testimony or martyrdom under Pontius Pilate, offered himself as the first-fruits of the martyrs, and through the blood of the saints by whom the Church is built. So that as once the temple was adorned with the figures of animals, so now the temple of God is adorned with the images of the saints, whose souls were reasonable temples in which God dwelt through the Holy Spirit.

But when we make an image of Christ our God, we do not strip him of his army. The Lord's army are the saints. Wherefore John Chrysostom, in his homily on Lazarus, the beginning of which is: "All knowledge is from God," speaks thus: "Where anyone honors the friends of Christ, that honor reaches to Christ, who does not cease to be beneficent and kind, especially when veneration is continued and persists towards them." Let an earthly emperor send an army, and let him take away their crown and purple, and then let him withhold this veneration from those who appeared stout against a tyrant, mastering their own thoughts and affections: who, since they have been made heirs of God and co-heirs of Christ in his glory and kingdom, how should they not be friends of Christ, and partakers of his honor on earth? Surely God himself our Lord said: I will not call you servants, because you are my friends [*]. It is necessary, therefore, to honor them with the honor with which the Church has honored them, etc. I omit the rest, which differ in nothing from those things which we have published elsewhere.

OF JOHN OF DAMASCUS AMONG THE SAINTS

SELECT EXCERPTS FROM THE UNIVERSAL INTERPRETATION OF JOHN CHRYSOSTOM ON THE EPISTLES OF SAINT PAUL.

ADMONITION.

This Epitome of the commentaries of John Chrysostom on the Epistles of the Apostle Paul, which we now present for the first time, has not been published hitherto. I found this work entire in Royal Codex 2331, with the name of John of Damascus prefixed to the whole work, *By John of Damascus*. There is certainly no doubt in my mind that he himself is the genuine author of this labor, both because of the authority of the manuscript codex, which carries with it the age of approximately nine hundred years, and because it has been noted many times by me already that John of Damascus devoted effort to compiling such excerpts from the Fathers, and his many books that survive to this day proclaim this fact. In the catalogue of handwritten books found on the island of Patmos in the sixteenth century, which Possevinus published again at the end of his *Apparatus* along with many others, John of Damascus’s exposition on the Epistles is numbered immediately after Chrysostom’s homilies on the Epistles of Paul and the Acts of the Apostles. Again, in Royal Codex 5445 (the silk-paper one), certain excerpts of the same work, compiled by John of Damascus, appear as an Epitome with this title: *Interpretations of Chrysostom selected from his universal work by the most holy Damascene, our Father*. To this I shall add that, from a collation of various passages of this Epitome with the commentary of Theophylact, it appears to me that this most learned prelate of Bulgaria consulted it repeatedly.

This commentary, however, was nothing other than certain brief scholia taken primarily from the expositions of Chrysostom, and indeed from those of other authors as well. Since these were written beside the text of the Apostle with certain specific notes, they were later separated by scribes when the text of the Apostle was pulled away, and were thus scattered in the order in which we are publishing them—an order which, because of the authority of the very ancient codex, we have considered it a religious duty not to change. Furthermore, in this commentary, sometimes whole sentences of Chrysostom are cited with the words slightly changed, sometimes only a few words, and sometimes nothing more than the sense of the holy doctor, which our author repeatedly renders in certain places more clearly than the text of the former allows. One passage of this kind is worth citing as a specimen. In chapter 5 of the Epistle to the Romans, verse 12, referring to these words of Paul, *in whom all have sinned*, Chrysostom explained it thus: *What is meant by "in whom all have sinned"? Since he fell, even those who ate from the tree have become mortal from him.* But what is the meaning of *in whom all have sinned*? It means that, by his falling, those who did not eat from the tree also became mortal from that point on. On account of this exposition, certain critics have judged that John Chrysostom did not understand

all men who are born from Adam, their first parent, are born guilty of that sin, and that the preposition in this place should not be taken as causal, but as having received the word to signify the same thing as the Latin word *quatenus* [inasmuch as]. On the contrary, our Damascene, who recites the words of the holy Doctor in their entirety, has prefixed these few things to the explanation, in which, for "through whom," he expresses—whether they like it or not—a cause. And so, with John Damascene as interpreter, it becomes certain that Chrysostom acknowledged that in that passage of the Apostle, the doctrine of the Church concerning original sin is affirmed. But in truth, many things occur here and there which Chrysostom does not have in his homilies, and especially in his commentary on the Epistles to the Ephesians, to the Colossians, to the Philippians, and to the Thessalonians, in which I was able to observe nothing that would appear to have been taken from that holy doctor. Often, however, he concurs with the expositions of Theodoret, as well as those of Cyril of Alexandria, which the Catena of Ecumenius exhibits. In the chapter of the Epistle to the Colossians, to the words of Paul, "In him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily," an exposition of this kind is brought forward, the author of which—if it be not Damascene himself—can at least be affirmed to have written it after the rise of the Nestorian heresy; for he explodes that inhabitation or union which the Nestorians called *schetiken*, or according to affection, relation, or state, lest anyone should think this inhabitation occurs according to affection and relation. I omit other things which a learned reader will detect with ease throughout this commentary. I will only warn that the prologue to the Epistle to the Romans seems to me to have perished, and furthermore that the codex is riddled with many errors throughout and is mutilated, so that the sense is often impervious and obscure. As for the text of Scripture which is interspersed with the commentary, in many places it appears different from that which John Chrysostom treated, and it was highly valued by the most learned and distinguished critics with whom I communicated, as a precious monument of Christian antiquity.

ON THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS.

CHAPTER FIRST.

^AVER. 1. « Paulus servus Jesu Christi vocatus Apostolus. » Tria sunt genera servitutis. Aliud per creationem et opificium: unde dicitur: *Omnia serviunt tibi*. Aliud a fide, de quo ait: *Liberati autem a peccato servi facti estis justitiæ*. Tertium denique a vita et moribus: quo itidem sensu dicitur: *Moyses servus meus mortuus est*. Quando itaque juxta omnes modos ostensa dignitas est servitutis, consulto prorsus hanc initio epistolæ præponit, tanquam gloriandi argumentum.

« Segregatus in Evangelium Dei. » Ostendit quanta sit sua dignitas, quippe qui segregatus erat ut Evangelio ejus ministraret. Porro Evangelium Dei nominat, ut in ipsomet exordio attentionem excitet auditoris.

VER. 2. « Quod ante promiserat per prophetas suos in Scripturis sanctis. » ^BQuandoquidem doctrinæ fidei novitatis crimen inurebatur, commonstrat eam tum gentilibus philosophis esse antiquiorem, tum et a prophetis jampridem descriptam.

VER. 3. « De Filio suo, qui factus est ex semine David secundum carnem. »