Nestorius, The Bazaar of Heracleides (1925) pp. 131-335. Book 2 part 1.
From the Records of the things which were done against me at Ephesus.
Peter, priest of Alexandria and chief of the secretaries says: 'When formerly the reverend Nestorius received consecration to become bishop of the holy church of Constantinople, and a few days were passed by, his homilies which disturbed those who read them were brought by certain men from Constantinople, so / that there arose on that account much disturbance in the holy church. When then the reverend bishop of Alexandria, Cyril, learned this, he wrote one letter and a second unto his reverence, full of counsels and warning; and in reply to these he wrote that he listened not, hardening himself and resisting the things which were written. And withal again, when the reverend bishop, Cyril, learned that letters and books of his homilies had been sent by him to Rome, he also wrote to the pious bishop of the church of Rome, Celestinus, by the hand of the deacon Poseidonius, whom he commanded, [saying], "if thou findest that the books and the homilies and the letters have been delivered, give also these things |132 which have been written by me; but if not, bring them back hither without now delivering them." But when he found that his letter and his homilies had been delivered, necessarily also he delivered [those of Cyril]. And those things which were proper, containing a well-known rule, were written by the pious [and] saintly bishop of the church of Rome, Celestinus. Because then, by the injunction of the godly Emperor, your holy Council has met here, we necessarily inform you that we have in our hands the papers concerning these things, with a view to [doing] whatever is pleasing unto your Piety.'
/ Nestorius. Cyril then is the persecutor and the accuser, while I am the persecuted; but it was the Council which heard and judged my words and the emperor who assembled [it]. If then he 1 was on the bench of judges, what indeed shall I say of the bench of judges? He was the whole tribunal, for everything which he said they all said together, and without doubt it is certain that he in person took the place of a tribunal for them. For if all the judges had been assembled and the accusers had risen in their place and the accused also likewise, all of them would equally have had freedom of speech, instead of his being in everything both accuser and emperor and judge. He did all things with authority, after excluding from authority him 2 who had been charged by the emperor, and he exalted himself; and he assembled all those whom he wanted, both those who were far off and those who were near, and he constituted himself the tribunal. And I was summoned by Cyril who had assembled the Council, even by Cyril who was the chief thereof. Who was judge? Cyril. And who was the accuser? Cyril. Who was bishop of Rome? Cyril. Cyril was everything. Cyril was the bishop of Alexandria and took the place of the holy and saintly bishop of Rome, Celestinus.
/ Who would have believed that these things happened so, if God had not obliged them to tell [them] and to write [them] down and to send [them] unto all the world? For all those |133 who were his [followers] read them and believe not that they happened so, and they doubt even about themselves, since they would rather trust things which happened in dreams than these, if they were thus as they did happen. What need was there for a Council, when this man was everything? That these things then were so you will learn from what happened at Ephesus; for Memnon says that: 'since the period which was fixed in the letters of the pious and most Christian Emperor, sixteen days have passed.' And he, in that he was lord of the Council, made use precisely of [these words]: Cyril, bishop of Alexandria, says: This great and holy Council has been patient enough, waiting for the coming of the godly bishops, who are expected to come.'
Nestorius. Is it not evident even to the unintelligent that he was in everything? By him then, who was busied in everything, I was summoned. And before what tribunal? To what judgement? To what inquiry? Tell me. 'This great and holy Council has been patient enough, having waited ' / sixteen days.' Thou sayest that it has waited enough; and you were not ashamed to have written this as an excellent reason whereby you were constrained not to wait for the bishops who were far off who were constrained to come, and who had been delayed in coming by an important reason and besought you to wait for them----those also who were near and whose coming was by no means unimportant. They were unavoidably delayed these days, if not more, in order that they might rest from their hardship in journeying by road and by ship, both for rest and for needful purposes and for the sake of visiting one another and those who were sick and were in need thereof, and especially because of those persons who were taking the place of those who were absent from the Council, in those things wherein constraint had been laid upon |134 them. Although it were indeed the day which was fixed and [on which] the convocation ought to have taken place, if anything were to happen so that it should be delayed, another additional day would rightly be granted, even as among men there are many causes which come upon them of necessity, so that things are not done in accordance with the strict provisions of the appointed period. But it was not the day of the convocation, but that of the coming; for the day of the convocation had been decreed by the authority of the Count. Thou didst thyself usurp [that authority], in that in thy senseless boldness thou hadst confidence in those who would justify thee perversely. For thou / lovest to persuade and thou art such that thou dost disregard those who are present and dost require those who are far off and dismissest those who are present at the Council and lookest for those who are far off; and thou holdest the Council without those who are far off having arrived. And he held a Council by himself, before the general Council and summoned those who participated not with him, that there might be a Council before the Council of all the bishops. And they testified unto him that he should put no confidence in this Council, to which he summoned me also, even making use of violence, and of such violence and force that it would not be believed, were any one to recount [it]; but it has been revealed by those who have written. Seditious persons indeed filled the city with idle and turbulent men, who were assembled together by Memnon, bishop of Ephesus; and he was at their head and was making them run about armed in the city, in such wise that every one of us fled and hid himself and had resort to caution and saved himself in great fear, as it is also easy to learn from the language of those who were sent. The latter came under the pretence indeed of summoning me unto the Council in order that it might be testified that we were not amongst those who recognized not the Council before the coming of all the bishops; but in reality they came to carry me off by assault and by violence and to spread the rumour about me that 'he has surely perished, / and his mouth has been closed over his blasphemies'; or to deprive me after I had been questioned. |135
Hear now from the language of Juvenalius that these things were said.3
Juvenalius, bishop of Jerusalem, says:3 'But because a crowd of Romans surrounded his house, and since the pious bishops came and said: 'Let none come nigh there'; it is known that with no good conscience did he decline to come unto the holy Council.'
Nestorius. You see of how much tyranny I made use and how far I was liable to accusation, because, for the purpose of rescuing myself from the conspirators who rose up against me, I had need to post soldiers around my house to guard me, that they might not come against me with violence and destroy me! Thou accusest me of posting soldiers around my house: [it was] not that they might do any wrong unto you but that they might hinder you from doing wrong unto me. From the fact that you reproach us with posting soldiers, it is clear that if they had not first been posted around me and been a wall for me, I should have been destroyed by violent men. What indeed would you have called / those who adjured you beforehand that there should not be an unrighteous Council? Were you assembled for the [end] for which you were summoned? You made the Council for yourselves and not for us; you expelled those men from the Council and of yourselves you acted for yourselves just as you wished, and you listened not unto those who called upon you not to hold a Council but to wait for the bishops who had been summoned with you and who were nigh unto coming. Now therefore for what purpose did you summon us after all this violence? Who will hold out and not weep when he remembers the wrongs which were [done] in Ephesus? It is well [that] they were against me and against my life and not for the sake of impiety! For I should not have had need of these words as touching a man who was capable of retribution but only as touching our Saviour Jesus Christ, who is a just judge and for |136 whose sake I have been content even to endure patiently that the whole bodily frame of Christ may not be accused. But now they invent [stories] concerning me, because I have not been able to be silent when I am accused on the subject of the dispensation on our behalf, so that of necessity I am excusing myself and am persuading all men who say: 'he has been the cause of this disturbance and disorder'; and I prove myself sincere, because I have been vexed by him1 and because of those who have written against me. But thou indeed / wast the first to sit in the midst of our judges, and because there were no accusers, in that they were judges, they put up to accuse me Theodotus, bishop of Ancyra in Galatia, and Acacius, bishop of Melitene, who was the interrogator.
Theodotus. But Theodotus first replied that he had indeed had some conversation with me but had not told him 4 the conversation, and the latter asked him not concerning what his speech was, in order that he might judge both conversations as a judge and accept the one and reject the other as having evidently fallen into impiety; but it was enough for him only that [there should be] an accusation.
Theodotus, bishop of Ancyra, says: 'I am grieved indeed for a friend, but verily I value the fear of God more than all love, and consequently it is a necessity for me, although with great sorrow, to speak the truth regarding those things of which there is question; I think not, however, that our own testimony is required, since his opinion has been made known in the letters unto thy Godliness; for those things which he there said are not to be said of God, that is, of the Only-begotten, counting human qualities a degradation unto him, he says also in conversation here that it is not right to say of God that he has been suckled nor that he was born / of a virgin; thus here also he has many times said "I say not that God was two or three months old "'. |137
Nestorius. They have not examined these things as judges, nor further has he spoken as before examiners and judges, but he stood forth as the witness of a judge-accuser.
Theodotus. 'The things indeed which he there rejected as not to be said of God, that is, of the Only-begotten, counting human qualities a dishonour unto him, he says also in conversation here----that it is not right that one should say of God that he has been suckled nor that he was born of a virgin; thus here also he has said that "I say not that God was two or three months old ".'
Nestorius. And he 5 accepted it without examination as a judge-accuser, without asking him anything, either: 'What said he unto thee when he said these things here?' or 'what didst thou say in reply to these things whereinsoever he seemed against thee? Wait; speak before us that we may know in what sense he has rejected these very things, in order that we may not accept without reason an accusation against him while he is far off and pass sentence against him without examination and without inquisition before those who need to learn exactly for what reason he has been condemned. Thus also the accused will not be able to deny and he will have no cause / to accuse me of respect for persons. Therefore, O Theodotus,----thou hast conversed with him----if then thou art accurately acquainted with his opinion, since thou hast questioned him and he has returned answer unto thee, [thou knowest that] he says: "I do not say that God is two or three months old ". Does he say [this] unto thee, as one who says that Christ is not God, that he was two or three months old, or does he confess that Christ is God but was not as God born nor [as God] became two or three months old?' 6
Thou 7 then, [dost thou confess] that God was born of a woman and that he was two or three months old, as though |138 his own ousia were changed into the ousia of a man and he was born and became two or three months old, or [was he as] one who was changed in his likeness and in his schema into the likeness and into the schema of a man by means of the ousia and that Christ is to be conceived in the one ousia of God and not in two ousias; and if in two, [canst thou explain] in what way two [issued] from the owe ousia of God the Word? Or [was he formed] of two distinct and unlike ousias and was he born with both of them? Or was he born one of these and did it become two or three months old, as though it had not existed before it was born and became two or three months old? Or did the ousia exist eternally and not have a beginning in being born and becoming two or three months old, whereas he had not in ousia that / which those who are born have of necessity? Or was he born by adoption of the ousia in the birth of the flesh? For if he 8 had thus been questioned, he would have confessed of necessity what he said before the Eastern bishops, when he was questioned in writing----that the Only-begotten Son of God created and was created, the same but not in the same [ousia]; the Son of God suffered and suffered not, the same but not in the same [ousia]; for [some] of these things are in the nature of the divinity and [others] of them in the nature of the humanity. He suffered all human things in the humanity and all divine things in the divinity; for birth from a woman is human but birth from the Father is without beginning, whereas the former [is] in the beginning, and the one is eternal while the other is temporal.9 Since he 8 was suffocated by the truth, he was not able to dissemble his opinion----he who was constrained by the result of the examination to set these things down in writing; and as is the manner of a dog which, being tied up by force, dissembles its bad habits and, as soon as it has escaped from its leash, flees to its hole with its companions and barks at those who caught hold of it and dares not come out and fight in the open but, remaining within, lays back its cars and puts its tail between its legs, thus also he dared not promise them that he would speak and conquer by reprimanding nor [do] any such |139 thing as those would normally do who were confident in their own cause, I mean [as any one] of them who should take his stand upon the Divine / Scriptures and the traditions and the instructions of the holy fathers, and win the victory.
But hear these things, howbeit not as though I were speaking. He dares not speak openly of what he says nor establish from the Divine Scriptures nor from the fathers what they have spoken nor how they have spoken. Nor again was he constrained to agree to what he had said nor to set it down in writing. But it is right to tell what I consider to be the truth. He 10 was the first to withhold it in order that they 11 might not know all the conversation and all the inquiry which was [held] by us, recounting those things against which they could not say aught. For this reason they wrote them not down, not even in the Records, except only 'it was not right to say of God that he was suckled nor that he was merely born of a virgin'. They made examination [only] as far as was pleasing unto them; but we will indeed speak of these things presently.
After him came Acacius and recounted unto them the conversation which he had with me and which was considered by them [to contain] impossible things. But he recounted his question, accusing me and not by way of reprimand nor sincerely by means of those things wherein he was confident; but they accepted his questions as accusations. And lest / you should suppose that I am creating these things, hear from them their own Records.
The Conversation of Acacius, Bishop of Melitene.
'As soon as I came to the city of Ephesus, I held [a conversation] with this man, who has been mentioned shortly before, and when I knew that he thought not |140 correctly, in every way the weight of the burden was upon me to set him correct and to lead him away from his opinion, and I saw that he confessed with his lips that he was abandoning any such opinion. But when I had delayed ten or twelve days, when again some discussion had been raised between us, I began to speak on behalf of the correct faith and I saw that he held what was contrary to this, and I perceived that he had fallen into two wrongs simultaneously. First indeed [in] his own question which was improper; he imposed on those who returned answer the necessity of either denying entirely that the divinity of the Only-begotten became incarnate or of confessing what is an impiety----that both the divinity of the Father and that of the Holy Spirit were found in body with the Word.'
Nestorius. Some questioned [and] others answered that these things consisted in absurdities and impiety; they confess and agree to the word / for which I have reprimanded them and, after what they have confessed, they will be condemned as impious. Would any one suppose that it was an [act of] oppression, when they have written down these things in their Records and make all the world testify against themselves? For suppose that my question was absurd: thou oughtest not to have accepted it but to have proved the absurdity of the question, in order that, as a result of correcting the question, thou mightest not fall into passing over impiety and absurdity; but, in accepting a question absurd for religion, thou hast therefrom in the next place conic to the impiety of confessing either that God the Word, the Son of God, was not made man or that the Father and the Spirit also were made man; that then to which thou didst agree when thou wast questioned thou oughtest to have made void.12
Yet although, like the other, thou hast not corrected me, let us grant that thou hast not fallen into this absurdity voluntarily or involuntarily: for what reason dost thou not utter this |141 absurd question whereby you wish to condemn me? But thou dost not utter it nor do the judges even require it. And if it is so absurd, how has it been left unconfuted, in such wise as not to be confuted by all your Council? And if you all leave it unconfuted and if there was none among you capable of confuting it, utter [this] absurd question, examine it, although you are judges [only] in schema, and write down this question in schema for those / who have intelligence and are ready to examine your judgement. But on account of your incapacity you remained in darkness, so that you were not even able to see things which were evident. But God rather helped you in your interrogation to write down these things that it might be evident unto all men that the enmity was without cause.
But from what can this be proved? From those things which they have set down in [their] cunning writings, in the judgement without condemnation. From now hear those things wherein they have placed the deposit of the faith of our fathers who were assembled at Nicaca, on two of which we shall rely as on testimonies which will not be declined by him; and we shall make use of them both against them, whether they act by examination, or in the likeness of those who accept them without examination, because they are the judges and they are the judged, like those who account themselves judges in fables and stories.
The faith which was laid down by the fathers at Nicaea.
'We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of all things which are visible and which are invisible, and in One Lord Jesus Christ, the Only-begotten Son of God, who was begotten of the Father, / that is, of the essence of the Father . . . ' 13
. . . . and first laying down the names of the two natures which indicate that these are common, without the Sonship |142 or the Lordship being separated and without the natures, in the union of the Sonship, coming into danger of corruption and of confusion.14
Observe then first who reduces and takes away from the deposit which has been laid down by the fathers, but lets not [anyone else] steal aught therefrom. This man 15 [it is] who has made no mention of the beginning and avoided the beginning and made a beginning which they laid not down but in this wise passed over the beginning and wished not to make a beginning therefrom, whereas [it is] I who have established the things which the fathers rightly said, and I said that we would make a beginning from here showing also the cause wherefore they first laid down the names which are common to the divinity and the humanity and then built up thereon the tradition of the Incarnation and of the Sufferings and of the Resurrection, 'first laying down the names of the two natures which indicate that these are common, without the Sonship or the Lordship being separated and without the natures, in the union of the Sonship, coming into danger of corruption and of confusion.' Why then / hast thou passed by these things as superfluous, as things which ought not to be said? Was it because thou didst suppose that it was the same and people ought not to speak thus, but that it was enough for them to begin thence whence thou didst begin and didst make a beginning and correct them? But those [fathers] anathematize those who make additions or diminutions, but they have done improperly and not according to the opinion of the fathers. But he gave a contrary explanation when I said unto |143 him that 'this is the beginning and thence rather ought we to begin whence I have admonished thee'. But he was disputing against me as though in his wisdom he were teaching all men lest through their ignorance they should fall short of this impiety. For what reason then, when thou didst lay down the faith, didst thou also not begin from here whence they began as touching that which was under inquiry? For we were searching how we ought naturally to understand and to speak of these properties of the flesh and of the rational soul and of the properties of God the Word, seeing that [either] they both belonged by nature to God the Word, or to Christ, so that both natures were united by the very union of one prosôpon. But I said and affirmed that the union is in the one prosôpon of the Messiah, and I made known in every way that God the Word was made man and that God the Word was at the same time in the humanity, / in that Christ was made man in it. And for this reason the fathers, in teaching us what Christ is, about whom they used to dispute, laid down first those things which constitute Christ; but thou [actest] in the reverse way, because thou wishest that in the two natures God the Word should be the prosôpon of union. Thou allowest these things [to pass] as superfluous and thou makest a beginning after them, as they do; and thou transferrest from the one unto the other all those things of which Christ is naturally [formed] and said. And since the Christ of the fathers is the opposite of thine, thou hast declined to acknowledge him and thou sayest with me, though thou wishest not, that Christ is in two natures but that God the Word is not in two natures.
But hear [an extract] from what he has written unto me, that you may know that there is nothing just in him but that he is arranging in everything that there may not be a judgement and an examination, which would make known his enmity toward me, which was not on account of the faith.
Diverse are the natures which have come unto a true union; but from them both [there has resulted] one Christ and Son, not because the diversity in the natures has been |144 abolished by reason of the union, but because they have perfected for us rather one Lord and Messiah and Son.16
Not indeed as though the ousia of God the Word who remains eternally as he is and receives neither addition nor diminution, was perfected in a change of natures; / but owing to the concourse of the union of the divinity and of the humanity there came into being one Christ and not God the Word; for he exists eternally. Christ therefore is the prosôpon of the union, whereas God the Word is not of the union but in his own nature, and it is not the same thing to say and to understand [the one for the other]. And for this reason, O admirable man, the fathers also, adhering to the Divine Scriptures, have said 'One Lord Jesus Christ the only-begotten Son', on account of the prosôpon of the union, and then teach what those who are united are, and in whom. Who is he who was born of the Father only-begotten? Our Lord Jesus Christ. 'The only-begotten Son of God, that is, from the ousia of God the Father. God from God and Light of Light, Very God of Very God, born and not made, consubstantial with the Father, by whom all that is in heaven and in earth was [made].' Of whom have you spoken, O fathers? Of something else or him [of] whom you have written before, 'One Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God'? Who is this and of whom? Of the Father, 'Very God of Very God, born and not made, consubstantial with the Father, through whom all was [made], who on account of us men and on account of our salvation came down.1 Who is this? Tell me and him and all men, O fathers. What is he? Another / or the Only-begotten? Him we teach you and none other, who 'on account of us men and on account of our salvation came down and was made flesh of the Holy Spirit and of the Virgin Mary, who also was made man'. Thus far, then, that 'He came down, was made flesh and was made |145 man', they have taught us about those things which concern the divinity of Christ: and in 'He was made flesh' about his union with the flesh; but for the rest, about the flesh wherein he was made flesh: 'One Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God.' For does not 'of the Holy Spirit and of the Virgin Mary' teach us concerning the birth of the flesh? 'One Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God.' What is his nature? That which his Mother also was, of whom the passible flesh was born. And 'He suffered and rose on the third day and ascended into heaven and will come to judge the living and the dead'. Who is this? 'One Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of the Father.' They call him both things: 'consubstantial with the Father' and 'consubstantial with the mother, one Lord Jesus Christ', [speaking not of] God the Word as in both [ousias] by nature, but of 'one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God'. For the union is in the prosôpon and not in the nature nor in the ousia, but a union indeed of ousias, namely, the ousia of God the Word and the ousia of the flesh; and they were united not in the ousia----for God the Word and the flesh became not one ousia and the two ousias became not flesh----[but] God the Word and the flesh [were so united]. And thou dost confess all these things with me / when thou sayest that the natures of the divinity and of the humanity are diverse and that the two natures remain in their own ousia and that their diversities are not made void by the union of the natures; for the two natures complete one Christ and not one God.
Of what then dost thou accuse me? Speak before all those who read our words. For I say this, and when thou hast spoken and confessed [this], thee too I have praised for what thou hast said, in that in thy discourse thou hast made a distinction between the divinity and the humanity and [hast united] them in the conjunction of one prosôpon; and [I have praised] thy saying that God the Word had not need of a second birth from a woman and that the divinity admits not of sufferings; faithfully hast thou spoken; and these [are the words] of those who are correct in their faith and are opposed to the wrong faith of all the heresies concerning |146 the Lord's nature. Where then have I said that Christ was a mere man or two Christs and that there was not one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, of the union of the two natures one prosôpon? And even unto thee thyself I have said, as brother unto brother, that we should not distinguish the union nor the prosôpon which [results] from the union. Nor again do we begin from God the Word, as from a prosôpon of union, but from him from whom the fathers began, who were wiser than thou and who were excellently acquainted with the Divine Scriptures. And see how / they tear up as from the foundation and destroy all those things which effect a change. For if thou referrest all the properties of the flesh to God the Word, see that, after stealing, as thou hast said, the properties of the natures, thou dost not say those things which the three hundred and eighteen fathers have with one voice and with one mouth and with one conscience rejected: that there was when God the Word was not, that is, [that] when his flesh was not, then God the Word was not; that is, that, before his flesh was born, he was not. In that thou hast said that he made for himself all the properties, so then God the Word was born of things which were not, because his flesh was [formed] of things which were not, unless thou darest to say that the flesh itself has eternally existed and sayest that God the Word was of another hypostasis and another ousia, and not of that of the Father but of that of which the flesh was, and [that] God the Word is changeable and corruptible on account of his flesh which is therein.17 For the fathers anathematize those who predicate these of God the Father.
Now God the Word is not of them both in ousia, nor again is God the Word in flesh, nor is God the Word of two nor is God the Word two natures. / For herein only, in his being co-essential with the Father, is God the Word conceived. For he was made flesh and was revealed in flesh; but if he was made flesh in the flesh, it is evident that [it was] in that flesh which had been made, and he who was made flesh in |147 that which was made made not his own ousia the flesh, so as to make the properties of the nature of the ousia of the flesh his own properties, but with a view to the revelation he carried out all the operations of his prosôpon. For he made use of the likeness and of the prosôpon of a servant, not the ousia nor the nature, in such wise that he was by nature in them both, as being Christ. What therefore has carried him 18 away to find another way and a beginning apart from that which the fathers had made, so that he came to anathematize all those things which had been said by them and of necessity to say all those things which had been anathematized by them? But he first laid down the [words] of the fathers, as though he wished to convince them, and to say 'I have said the same things as they', and then to accuse me as though I spoke not in the same way as they. But after he found that I said the same as they and that I maintained their own [views], he began to lay down laws and to substitute those terms which they had not said, and to introduce them into the faith, persuading [every one] that he ought to embrace the latter instead of the former. For thus it was said of God the Word, when he 19 said that he / existed before the worlds and was born of the Father and was born in flesh of a woman. But where have the fathers said that God the Word was born in flesh of a woman? Require him to state the deposit of the fathers which they have laid down for all men and to which also, thou hast well said, we ought to adhere in words and in faith. If then thou keepest thy promise in deeds, it is right; for he who has not spoken as the fathers have spoken is guilty. Prove then that the fathers have spoken this word, then condemn me with an anathema in the manner of one who has transgressed the books and the deposit of the fathers, although ten thousand times I have excused myself and said that I imagined not otherwise in mine imagination. Or if not, let not alone whosoever has defiled aught that the fathers have said in the terms which have been fixed by them. For those terms which |148 have been fixed by them ought by all means to be observed, although we have often neglected to explain them; for if any one otherwise makes use of them, such as they are, [he ought to do so,] not as with a view to suppression nor as with a view to change nor as with a view to transformation, but that he may preserve therein with me such an opinion as is correct, I mean, that of the fathers.
What then hast thou to prove concerning this? Did I make wrong use of the word which is in the deposit of the fathers and ought I to beg for an explanation? Prove unto me that God the Word was born / in flesh of a woman and then explain how thou understandest that he was born. For if thou presupposest it and if thou explainest what has been laid down by thee, thou art not accepted by those who accept the [words] of the fathers; they are without diminution and for this reason they admit neither addition nor diminution nor change. For he who explains also establishes those things which have been written and surely does not suppress them. And if I have made wrong use of the words of the fathers----I who would have persuaded [every one] by words not to call the holy virgin the mother of God nor would have called Christ God 20 and thou hast been constrained to come against me----prove unto me first that I said these things before certain men who duly examined us and not before those who inclined unto thy side; for thou hast conquered before the latter and thou hast made use of them as though they had neither reason nor soul; and thou hast not presented mine own letter, wherein I disputed against thee, as before men. lest thou shouldest confuse the words of the fathers; but that thou mightest confess one Lord Jesus Christ consubstantial with the Father, none other but one and the same who is one prosôpon of the two natures: of the divinity and of the humanity, Lord and Christ; and this also hast thou confessed. It was not therefore because I confessed not that Christ himself----who is also God, and none other than God the Word, consubstantial / ----is God, but because I confess that he is also |149 man. If it were that this is so and I had not thus confessed, in teaching I should have added that Christ is God and consubstantial with the Father and at the same time also man consubstantial with us. I should not have cursorily passed over the prosôpon of the union and the ousia of the divinity,21 as if I were to begin from the common prosôpon of the divinity and of the humanity as if from one ousia of God the Word, which they both were; but I should have referred to him naturally all the things which concern him and which concern his flesh, since he is both of them by ousia.
Why then dost thou falsely charge the fathers with that which they say not? And why again dost thou persuade those who are unwilling to accept anything apart from the deposit of the fathers to accept thine own rather than that of the fathers? But recollect thyself and read and know and see that they have not said this and that we have not transgressed them as ignorant or as wicked men; but thou findest not that those who have written for thee have said that he who was born of the Father was born in flesh of a woman, if they have mentioned at all the birth from a woman. How then sayest thou, O calumniator, that 'we have found that the holy fathers thought thus and that they thus were confident in calling the holy virgin the mother of God. Thus we say that he both / suffered and rose'? 22 First prove unto us that the fathers called her the mother of God or that God the Word was born in flesh or that he was born at all and at the same time both suffered and died and rose, and explain unto us how they say that God suffered and rose. But if it has surely been fabricated by thee, and thou art calumniating [the fathers], how can anyone without doubt admit the rest of thesethings? Forthou hast made them all doubtful, because thou hast not said those things which the fathers have said but hast changed even the very term. For although thou hast supposed the same thing that they make known and there is no single distinction between 'the Lord and Jesus Christ' and 'God the Word', and though thou |150 makest known the same thing by this term or by that, thou oughtest not to have made changes but to have explained and made clear and to have made use of terms which have been laid down by the fathers. But thou couldest not by those terms prove God the Word passible and mortal, and for this reason thou makest use of this term whereby thou canst carry away those who know not what each one of them signifies.
Thus also we understand 'He died'; for God the Word is immortal indeed in his nature and incorruptible and quick and quickening; but, further, because his body by the grace of God, as Paul has said, has tasted death for every man, it is said that he bore death for us.
By / whom [is this said]? By thee or by the fathers? Speak, deceive not the hearers by means of the fathers, by thy statements that thou agreest with their words and their teaching. Read therefore: where have they said that God the Word suffered? But thou sayest that Divine Scripture has said that God the Word suffered; read and dissemble not. But it exists not for thee to read. For what purpose then dost thou calumniate the fathers? Or why dost thou take the faith of the fathers as a means for deceiving and forestalling those who believe simply and without investigating? Makest thou sport of those who read as men who reflect not? Or correctest thou the faith of the fathers, who have not written what they ought to have written? For thou first layest it down and thou sayest that we ought to agree thereto in words and in faith; but thou adherest not at all thereto and hast not even observed the order of the text nor begun whence the fathers began, and in addition to these things thou hast referred [to God the Word] all those things which have been said by them.23 And thou hast neither feigned to make use of the same terms nor hast thou adhered to their teaching. For |151 'created' and 'made' and 'passible' and 'mortal' and all such things as the fathers repudiate thou hast predicated of the ousia of God the Word, of whom are predicated all those things which belong unto the Father in his own ousia and who exists. For thou maintainest that we should so speak as those men who have not spoken, and then, to be sure, thou explainest / not, even though indeed thou wouldest preclude God the Word from being called passible and mortal, but so as to persuade men to say the things, the saying of which the fathers have refused. Thus we confess one Lord Christ who took his name at birth from the blessed Mary but is indeed man, yea even in the death, yea even in the resurrection, yea even in the ascension, yea even in his coming from Heaven; of all these things thou now strippest him. 'Thus', thou sayest, 'we confess one Christ and Lord', as thou thyself sayest. We shall then confess that which has not been confessed:
Not indeed as though we adore the man with the Word, lest thou shouldest introduce a semblance of separation in that we have said 'with', but we adore him as one and the same, because his body is not alien unto him, with which he also is seated with the Father.24
Either he has said it through the blindness of his intellect or he has been compelled by the necessity of God to fall into that whereat he is vexed in others and into [incurring] the same reprimand.
For he has used the [word] 'with' twice, in that he has said |152 'with him who is seated with the Father'. For the [word] with' is not said of one but [of one] with another, and the one, who is with the other, is seated with the Father; how will he not introduce a semblance of separation? He says 'the body' and 'his own body' and 'seated with him' and causes not the semblance of a separation! By 'one and the same God the Word' he understands also his body; and he understands / the body and again he does not understand the body; and he understands that his body is with him and he does not understand that his body is with him but understands it [to be] alone; and he understands that he is seated with it with the Father and again does not understand that it is seated with the Father, but he understands him [to be] alone. Who could tell his ineffable wisdom? But he has taken it for him, not as though again two sons were sitting but one, owing to the union with his flesh.25
And further thou hast said: 'Thou hast 26 raised the semblance of a cleavage when thou givest to imagine one with another'. But [it is] in the union. Of whom? Of Christ? Then the prosôpon of the union is Christ, but thou sayest that he has taken for him that with which he also was seated with the Father. . . . Thou hast put a prosôpon in it itself; why therefore dost thou make [it] void, as if it had been unrighteously said that it also is seated with him with the Father? Or as if by this [word] 'with' thou hadst been forced to understand that he is so, and it were possible that thou understandest or imaginest correctly, in confessing that not two sons were seated but one owing to the union with his flesh. And thou makest void this [word] 'with', that men may not imagine two. But if that which thou hast said be impious for thee, return again to this chapter which thou hast omitted, for it is its aim. For what hast thou written? Hast thou not clearly disproved [thy statement] that we ought not to write 'with'; and hast thou written that 'He is seated / with it with the Father '? For he who says these things says that two sons are seated, but thou disprovest that men ought |153 not to imagine that two sons are seated. And thus in the deposit which has been laid down thou allowest that which signifies two sons, but thou sayest that we ought not to conceive two sons, but two are of necessity conceived, as it is supposed according to thine own opinion. But it is otherwise deposited and to be said, and two sons are not to be conceived. Of what dost thou accuse me, who say that two are united in one Son, whereby I wished to show the inconfusion of the natures in the union, in making use of the qualities of the natures? I seek not to make as it were two sons nor again the dissolution of the union, but I make use of one prosôpon of union as [formed] of the two ousias, as also Divine Scripture signifies. But by one ousia thou signifiest two ousias. But if I were to say the things which thou sayest, it would appear to thee an impiety. But if thou didst have confidence to read the things, thou didst read them for thyself and not for them[selves], things which cannot be examined in that way, if in piety. Thou hast further shunned also an examination by the whole Council, because thou didst judge that these [views] had no accurate defence. And as I was not [there], / what thou saidest well unto them thou saidest for my sake, and what thou saidest wrongly against thyself [was] thus again also for my sake. For if this word 'with' hinders there being one Son and his being seated with his flesh with the Father, there are not two adorations of one Son because he is adored with it, since he who is seated with that which is alien is adored in one adoration; for there is a union in the natures----and thou also confessest [it] with me----but the distinction of the natures is not made void on account of the union. For it was right for me to say many times those words which have been well said; then thou art astonished, when thou hearest that which is mine in thine: that there was indeed no union which proved not a diversity, as [is shown by] the adoration of 'Him who is seated [at the right hand of the Father]'. But thou takest as the starting-point of thy narrative the Maker of the natures and not the prosôpon of union. Either then avoid saying two natures united without confusion; or confess and say these things, and it will not appear an impossibility unto thee to |154 predicate one in the union and another in that which concerns the ousia, not in that which concerns the union of the prosôpon.
But if we decline the hypostatic union as being either incomprehensible or as unseemly, we fall into predicating two sons: for it is necessary to distinguish and to say of man / alone that he is honoured with the name of son, but also of God the Word alone that he possesses the title and the functions of the sonship naturally. It is not right then to distinguish two sons in one Lord Jesus Christ.
I have said unto thee also in the letter that I do not know [the meaning of] the things which have been said by thee. And thou feignest to be repentant; thou hast not dissembled those things which thou wast fairly prepared to say afterwards. And when thou oughtest to have made answer concerning these things and to write and to persuade and to reprimand the calumniators openly, thou hast risen up against thyself and me and hast neglected the fathers and the Holy Scriptures. Why dost thou wish that there should be an hypostatic union, which makes us neither understand that there is [in the union] the ousia of man nor understand [that he is] man in nature but God the Word in nature, that is, God who is not in nature what he is in his nature through the hypostatic union, wherein there are no distinctions and definitions of the various [elements]. For this reason also this union is a union of those things which have been defined by the word ousia; and if it be void, there is no more a union; but [it is the result] of a union, yet not a union. And if every definition of the natures is made void, how will the union not make void the distinctions of the natures? And if they are conceived neither in nature nor in a union, how hast thou said that he has made / the property of the flesh his own, since thou sayest that [he is] in the one indeed by nature but in the other by union? And it is his to have suffered indeed |155 in nature and to have died, because he has made them his own. How then hast thou sought to establish the hypostatic union? What is this unintelligible hypostatic union? Or how shall we accept it, the unintelligible? Or how hast thou understood it? How is it raised up though incomprehensible? And again, unseemly? Instruct us. But thou art not willing to instruct me. Thou hast supposed to thyself that the judges speak unto thee and persuade thee to instruct us and those who are like us, because we know not; and if not, instruct the whole Council. For neither thou nor the Council are capable of [understanding] the term 'union'. Because I also say 'union', yet thou acceptest not what I say, because I distinguish the union. If I say concerning things which have been united that they are corporeal in ousia and incorporeal in ousia, then [I say that] they are divided from one another: the one indeed as created, but the other as uncreated; the one indeed mortal and the other immortal; and the one eternal with the Father and the other created in the last times, and the one consubstantial with the Father and the other consubstantial with us; for the union makes not void the ousias which have been united in such wise that they are not to be known [apart].
/ Thou sayest unto me 'Thou distinguishest'; but verily thou also [dost likewise]; even in the very words to which thou hast recourse to accuse me, thou sayest as follows: 'Diverse are the natures which have come into a true union; yet from both of them [is formed] one Christ and Son, not as though the diversity of the natures had been removed because of the union.' Dost thou give us to imagine this even concerning the hypostatic union? Or [dost thou not speak] as one who distinguishes, saying that as a result of their diversities the natures which have been united are diverse; and [then] rush headlong into thy profession that thou introducest not a semblance of separation? And what do I mean by 'thou introduces 27 a semblance of separation'? And what do I mean by 'a semblance'? Thou understandest the separation of the natures |156 as expressing the natures and not as a confusion, since there is not in thy mind any semblance of definition of the natures whereby to understand that they were united without confusion, even as the fire was united with the bush and the bush with the fire and they were not confused. Thou therefore showest them without definition and without distinction, whereas I show them defined and distinct from one another. If thou then speakest of the hypostatic union, speak clearly; for I confess to not understanding either then or now; thou needest to instruct me in such wise that I may agree with thee. Or if I accept not thy opinion, say that I accept it not, and if the judges / accept [it] of thee, let them convince me or let them condemn me as one for whom there is no getting rid of his wickedness.
Say therefore [what] the hypostatic union [is]. Dost thou wish to regard a hypostasis as a prosôpon,28 as we speak of one ousia of the divinity and three hypostases and understand prosôpa by hypostases? Thou callest therefore the prosôpic union hypostatic; yet the union was not of the prosôpa but of the natures. For 'diverse are the natures which have come into a true union, yet from both of them [is formed] 'one Christ'. Understandest thou the one prosôpon of Christ rather than the hypostasis of the ousia and of the nature, in the same way as thou speakest of the form of his hypostasis |157 and the union of the natures? But I say that; and I praised thee for having said it and having made a distinction of the natures in the doctrine of the divinity and of the humanity and coherence of these in one prosôpon. For hast thou not said 'diversities without confusion' and 'it remained without diversity whereby it would be separated'. But even if thou dost not concede a diversity and that a diversity of natures, thou dost concede a natural separation without knowing it. But it was not a diversity which became a union, since the things which are therein remain without confusion, as the bush in the fire and the fire in the bush. But it appears not that thou sayest this, and thou dost rebuke me as one who accepts not the hypostatic union. But I am not persuaded of any other / hypostatic union with other natures nor of anything else which is right for the union of diverse natures except one prosôpon, by which and in which both the natures are known, while assigning their properties to the prosôpon. It is well to confess and be conformable to the tradition of the Gospels that the bodily frame is the temple of the divinity of God the Word and that the temple has been united by the supreme adherence of the divinity in such wise as to make over to the one the things which are the other's by the appropriation of the nature of the divinity, but not that he made them [both] his own ousia. What other hypostatic union, then, dost thou wish to teach me, which consists in a supreme and divine and ineffable union? I know not unless [it be that] of one prosôpon where the one is the other and the other the one. And for this reason I proclaim eagerly in every place that the things which are said either about the divinity or about the humanity must be taken not of the nature but of the prosôpon, so that there might be no unreality about the human qualities, [as there would be] if both of them were united in the ousia. For not in all things is he to be called in |158 ousia that which was in the ousia, but all those things which indicate the prosôpon of [the ousia\ And it is known that God the Word is said to have become flesh and the Son of man after the likeness and after the prosôpon of flesh and of man whereof he made use to make himself known unto the world. For all the things which are naturally / called flesh are not to be called also God the Word: as that he should come into being when he was not or was [formed] of that which was not or whatever the flesh is said [to have been] before it came into being, when it came into being and after it came into being, in the changes of growth and corruption, and in short consubstantial with ourselves. Because he is consubstantial with ourselves in everything, the things which are said of the ousia are not said of any thing else except only of this ousia, and he is called consubstantial [with us]; for in [the saying of] the things which are said of the prosôpon and of the likeness of the nature is said that which makes him known, as the prosôpon [makes known] the ousia. But that which exists naturally is not said [of God the Word], because the union took not place according to the ousia and the nature but according to the prosôpon. Thus also the flesh is not to be said [to be] all that God the Word is by nature; for it was not without beginning nor was it unmade nor was it incorporeal nor was it invisible nor was it consubstantial with the Father and with the Holy Spirit, although that which is called Son and Lord and God is also to be called flesh in this manner through the union, because the union came into being as touching the prosôpon of the Son of God, and neither the ousia nor the nature, but by means of the natures; and all things which belong to the prosôpon are its, except the ousia of the prosôpon, not according to the nature but according to the prosôpon.
/ What other hypostatic union, then, dost thou predicate, as if saying that I accept it not, either as incomprehensible or as unseemly, and [that] for this reason I have fallen into speaking of two Christs: the one man who is honoured under the title of Son and then apart [from him] God the Word, who possesses naturally the name and function of sonship? How can he who in the union speaks of one Son, one Christ, |159 one Lord, distinctly speak apart of one Son, God, and one other, and thus of two sons? For again that would not be called a union but each one of the natures [by itself] in its own ousia. For neither is God the Word said to have become flesh in his own ousia but by union with the flesh, nor is the flesh called Son apart from the union with the Son of God. For this reason there is one flesh in them both and one Son in them both. For he whose it is by the union to exist and to be spoken of neither exists nor is spoken of in the definition and the distinction [of each] from one another. As God the Word is by his nature God incorporeal, nevertheless in the union with the flesh he is called flesh, and the flesh which is in its nature bodily frame and in its ousia also bodily frame, is yet God and Son by the union with God the Word the Son of God. There are said to be neither two fleshes nor again two sons: those which are distinct by nature and exist by the union of the natures. Among / men, in fact, many who are sons are [so] called by the distinction and by the division of the natures, those unto every one of whom [sonship] is given only by grace and adoption, as honour is given by the Emperor unto every one of the princes. For that which exists only in its own hypostasis belongs also unto many as by grace. For he exists in his hypostasis and has made it the likeness of his likeness, neither by command nor by honour nor simply by equality of grace, but he has made it his likeness in its natural likeness, in such wise that it is none other than that very [thing] which he has taken for his own prosôpon, so that the one might be the other and the other the one, one and the same in the two ousias, a prosôpon fashioned by the flesh and fashioning the flesh in the likeness of its own sonship in the two natures, and one flesh in the two natures, the one fashioned by the other and the other by the one, the same and the single likeness of the prosôpon.
I know not therefore in what sense thou predicatedst the hypostatic union in such wise that it is incomprehensible or unseemly, in order that I may admit or not admit [it]; and has he for this reason been defined and called solely man by the title or by the honour |160 of a son, and then again apart the Word which is from God, to which belongs naturally sonship and name and title?
But what meanest thou by 'uniquely'? / State clearly the deposit of the faith of the fathers and set down the things which are alike both for me and for every one to say, for thou hast not made clear the meaning which we ought to mean and to state. How sayest thou that the nature of man cannot be understood 'uniquely', especially apart from the ousia of God the Word, which is Son not by nature but by union? But also thou sayest that there are diversities in the natures which have been combined in the union of one Son; but the diversity is not voided through the union of the natures; it is not as though the diversity of the natures were made void because of the union. If then the distinctions of the natures have not been annulled, the nature of the flesh appertains solely to the nature of the humanity. But that which is Son consubstantial with God the Father and with the Holy Spirit uniquely and solely appertains to the divinity; for by the union the flesh is son and God the Word is flesh. And for this reason whoever speaks thus neither predicates two sons nor predicates two fleshes, nor predicates two fleshes in the nature nor yet of the flesh in the one and of the sonship in the other, but makes use of the same in the natural prosôpa of each of them in what is their own, as the fire was in the bush and the bush was fire and the fire bush and each of them was bush and fire and not two bushes nor two fires, since / they were both in the fire and they were both in the bush, not indeed in division but in union. From the two natures there come into being the natural prosôpa. Either then speak not of distinct natures when they remain in the distinctions of the natures and are not made void, or say that they have remained the diversity of the natures, or thou shouldest define them as a distinction of natures in an inseparable union, not indeed as diversities of nature made void by the union. . . 29 |161
For if then thou understandest them uniquely and not in the natures but in their mutual distinction, of what am I guilty who confess the indistinguishable union of the two natures in one prosôpon? And I am addressing my words unto thee as unto one who is in doubt concerning these things. But predicatest thou but one nature of the hypostatic union in such wise that after the union the natures preserve not their properties? And thou correctest the things which were formerly said by thee, but especially thou dost surely declare them void as a result of the examination against me, in wishing to say the contrary of the things which I say, because it has befallen thee to will to inquire into the cause of the distinction not as in sincerity but out of opposition as an enemy. For this [union] is as one that suppresses the natures, and I accept it not. / But out of opposition towards me thou hast occupied [thy mind] with definitions, with furious words, as robbers, that thou mightest conceal thy purpose and might not be discovered; and thou sayest this and that and all things, but thou speakest not of the hypostatic union for the making void of the natures but for the [establishing of] a natural union which [results] from the composition in one nature. As the soul and the body [result] in one nature of the man, so also God the Word is united with the humanity, and this thou callest the hypostatic union. But even then, though the natures were to remain, yet there would come to be a union [resulting] in a nature passible and made and created, for the natural union is a second creation. For those things which have not [a thing] in their nature receive it in their nature by the union of nature; but the things which are united in virtue of a natural union are united with the natural passibility of the other and accept not voluntarily mutual sufferings, as the body and the soul, receiving not in their nature their own mutual properties except by the union of nature, participate in one another and give and receive mutual sufferings by the necessity of nature in such wise that he suffers who would not have suffered of himself. For in the union the soul of itself neither hungers nor thirsts nor is pained by a cut or by a burn or by a blow, nor again is |162 the soulless bodily frame sensible of any of these things; but by the natural / union of diverse natures they suffer passively and participate in these mutual sufferings by the necessity of the union.
If thou thus predicatest the hypostatic union of the nature, thou sayest, as the Arians, that it is natural and not voluntary, because he suffered with a natural passibility. He suffered as a result of the natural union, for the sufferings of the soul are the sufferings of the body in the natural composition. For he who is unmade, who is by his nature uncreated, was not composed that he might suffer as though created and made. For men prove not the one nature of the union by the fact that the soul is in the body and the body in the soul, for it 30 produces not the union in every bodily frame wherein there is a soul so as also to be able always to quicken it, but [it is in the body] by such a composition as has been constructed in one nature by the Maker, both subjected and involuntarily subject unto a natural limitation, both limited and unable to escape. And again they are released or bound by the construction in the union of the nature. If therefore the union of God the Word with the humanity was in one nature, although those natures remained without confusion but in a union of the nature, the Maker and that which was made would be constructed by a change either willingly or unwillingly since they have been so styled and it 31 is made and created. And he who can create everything, that is, God, will be the nature of the union, and it is not the hypostasis of the humanity which is known [to be] animal in nature, as even the body / without the soul is not animal in its own hypostasis, but by the construction of the natural union it is its [property] to be animal. If it is so, it is also through God [the property] of man to be animal, but it is not his [property through] his own hypostasis and his nature, but through the hypostatic union which establishes one nature.
For this purpose he declines to say that the man is man and that he is animal in his hypostasis and in his nature, and that |163 God the Word is God the Word in his hypostasis, in order that he may maintain his nature in the union, and that it may not become animal as a result of the union. For he 32 received as a result of the construction of [all] creation by the Father and by the Son and by the Holy Spirit to become man, but to become the only-begotten Son he received from the union with God the Word, for it belonged not unto his own nature nor did it lie in the natural and hypostatic union. For that which it was his to become by the natural union was not his to become as a result of anything else than of the natural construction, as to become one animal results neither from the bodily frame nor from the soul nor from them both but from the natural construction. This [union] then is corruptible and passible, but the union of the prosôpa of the natures is neither passible nor corruptible as [having taken place] through a voluntary appropriation; and the union was not his involuntarily by condescension or by exaltation, by command or by subjection unto command. And such a conception as this consists neither in the making void / nor in the being made void nor in the extinction of one nature or of the properties of the two natures, but the several qualities in the natural qualities are distinct in purpose and in will, according to the distinction of the natures in the one equality, while there is the same will and purpose in the union of the natures, so that they may both will or not will the same things. 33
And because also the prosôpon of the one is the other's and that of the other the one's, and the one [comes] from the other and the other from the one, the will belongs to each one of them. When he speaks as from his own prosôpon, [he does so] by one prosôpon which appertains to the union of the natures and not to one hypostatis or [one] nature. For the divinity is not limited by the body as each one of the natures which are |164 united in the hypostatis. For they are limited by the nature in that it limits them in their being and they exist not apart from them, as the soul and the body are bound together in their being and exist not apart from themselves]. 34
If therefore thou thus sayest that God the Word and the flesh are united and thou callest this an incomprehensible and unseemly union, I decline not to say clearly: 'Those who say these things are impious, and this opinion comes not from the orthodox.' For if the Son, who is impassible, had come unto the necessity of a passible nature in order that he might sensibly suffer, it would prove that his own ousia was not impassible / but [was] a passible nature, whereof he had been constituted in the hypostatic union and wherein he suffered. For he to whose nature it appertains not to suffer, will not suffer in any way in his hypostasis, if he is impassible; for he who suffers in aught is not impassible in his hypostatis, but is impassible [only] in such manner as all those who, being passible, suffer in nature; they do not suffer in all ways, but in that way whereby it appertains to the nature itself to suffer. Everything suffers not in the same way, neither light nor air nor fire, nor the animals which are in the waters nor the animals which are on the dry land, nor birds nor bodily frames nor souls nor angels nor demons, but they are passible indeed in ousia and in hypostasis. But they suffer according to the disposition of their nature to suffer either of themselves or by another.
But thou sayest neither by confusion nor yet by change of ousia nor by corruption nor yet naturally, so that one hypostatic union takes place. Thou predicatest therefore this voluntary one wherein a union without confusion and without the suffering of the natures in one prosôpon is conceived, and not a natural union. For the prosôpon of a natural union is predicated of the two natures which have been united, as the man is neither body nor soul; for the union of these results in a nature and the prosôpon of the nature. But / God took upon himself the likeness of a servant, and that of none other, for his own prosôpon and for his sonship, as indeed are those who are |165 united in nature. 35 He took the likeness of a servant: and the likeness of the servant was not the ousia of a man, but he who took it made it [his] likeness and his prosôpon. And he became the likeness of men, but he became not the nature of men, although it was the nature of a man which he took; he who took it came to be in the likeness of man, whilst he who took and not that which was taken was found in schema as man; for that which was taken was the ousia and nature of man, whereas he who took was found in schema as man without being the nature of man. For the nature he took not for himself but the likeness, the likeness and schema of man, in all things which indicate the prosôpon: as touching the poverty of the schema, he 36 relates: He condescended unto death, even the death upon the cross whereby he emptied himself, in order to show in nature the humiliation of the likeness of a servant and to endure scorn among men; for they shamefully entreated him, even him who displayed infinite condescension. He made known also the cause wherefore he took the likeness of a servant when He was found in the likeness of men in schema as a man and humiliated himself unto death, even the death upon the cross. But he suffered not these things in his / nature but made use therein of him who suffers naturally in his schema and in his prosôpon in order that he might give him by grace in his prosôpon a name which is more excellent than all names, before which every knee which is in heaven and on the earth and beneath the earth shall bow; and every tongue shall confess him, in order that by his similitude with God and according to the greatness of God he may be conceived as Son who took the likeness of a servant and was in the likeness of a man and was found in schema as a man and humiliated himself unto death, even the death upon the cross, and was exalted in that there was given unto him a name which is more excellent than all names in the schema of the likeness of a servant |166 which was taken with a view to the union. But he was the likeness of a servant not in schema but in ousia, and it was taken for the likeness and for the schema and for the humiliation unto death upon the cross. For this reason it was exalted so as to take a name which is more excellent than all names.
But to understand 'the likeness of a servant as ousia' he appointed Christ for the understanding; for Christ is both of them by nature. For this reason the properties of the two natures befit also one prosôpon, not [that] of the ousia of God the Word. And the prosôpon is not in the ousia, for it is not in the ousia of God the Word, nor is it the prosôpon of the union of the natures which have been united in such wise as to make two ousias befit the one prosôpon / of God the Word, for he is not both of them in ousia. God the Christ is not indeed as it were another apart from God the Word, but he is indicative of the union of the two ousias of God the Word and of man. But God and man----of them is Christ [constituted], as thou also hast said. The diversities of the natures are not destroyed because of the union, but they have rather perfected for us one Lord and Christ and Son, by an ineffable and incomprehensible concurrence of the divinity and of the humanity in the union. Although in the things which thou hast said well, where thou seemest to repent. . . . For the ousia of God the Word was not made perfect by the divinity and by the humanity, because it is not its [property] in virtue of the union to become God the Word, as Christ is [constituted] of the divinity and of the humanity. For the incarnation is indicative of the humanity, for He was made man is all conceived not only of the divinity but also of the incarnation which makes man.
For this reason the Apostle lays down the prosôpon of the union and next the things wherefrom the union results. He says first the likeness of God, which is the similitude of God and next it took the likeness of a servant, not the ousia nor the nature but the schema and the prosôpon, in order that he might participate in the likeness of a servant, and that the |167 likeness of the servant might participate in the likeness of God, so that of / necessity there might be one prosôpon from the two natures. For the likeness is the prosôpon, so that it is the one by ousia and the other by union in respect to the humiliation and to the exaltation. How then dost thou bid us understand these diversities of the natures in the union? For the union has not removed the diversities of the natures, so that we should again understand these diversities anew. For he who took the likeness of a servant is the property solely of the likeness of God, whereas that which was taken concerns uniquely the likeness of the servant; but the one belongs to the other and the other to the one through the union of the prosôpon and not through the ousia, in such wise that, where the one is in ousia, the other is in union, and not another. That which is in ousia the likeness of God is consubstantial with this ousia, in that it is a natural likeness; but by union the likeness of God took the likeness of a servant and the likeness of God, which is naturally God's, became in schema the likeness of a servant. But the likeness of the servant, which is naturally the likeness of a servant and in the union the likeness of God, is not naturally God's, so that we understand severally in nature the several qualities of each one of the natures and the natural distinctions of each single one of the natures; and the [properties] of the union we understand [as belonging] uniquely to the union and not to the ousia. How therefore dost thou bid us not to conceive any of these things apart in view of / the distinctions of the natures, things which thou hast said are not destroyed because of the union? But thou canst neither reply unto me nor convict me of the things whereof thou accusest me; but thou accusest thyself in the things whereof thou wouldest accuse me and thou speakest against thyself.
But you, O just judges, what have you examined of these things? Either concerning the things which we have subjected to inquiry or of the things which we have said and of the things which I have confessed and of the things which I have denied that I have imagined, convict him who has erred or instruct him who is ignorant. For not because of the things |168 that a man denies is he condemned as an heretic, but because of the things that he confesses. Thus Arius, thus Eunomius, thus Macedonius, thus each of the heretics was condemned by the fathers because of the things which they confessed in opposition [to the faith] and discussed and [which] were subjected to scrutiny. What is there of that which I have confessed and discussed against them for which they have condemned me as an heretic? What have you found in my letter that is contrary to the deposit of the fathers? Whether I have said or have not said [it], speak. Thus he 37 has said that all the things which are referred to Christ by the Divine Scripture ought to be referred to God the Word: the birth from a woman, the cross, the death, the burial, the resurrection, the ascension, and the second coming when he shall come again. It was not / from these things that the fathers began. . . . But in regard to these things, I have stated why the fathers have not said them; and for this reason also we ought not to begin from here. I have also stated the argument, for they purposed not to prove that God the Word is passible, mortal, and made, and created, nor that he came into being from things which were not----these [are the doctrines] which those who began from there are constrained to state----but the opposite of the things which Arius said and taught. For this reason they placed the beginning of their teaching in the union of the prosôpon of Christ in order that they might duly accept in order the things appertaining to the divinity and those appertaining to the humanity, so that there comes about neither confusion nor making void of the natures. But they combated against all the heresies and were firmly confirmed in orthodoxy when they answered and spoke these words: 'I believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son.'
Examine, I said unto him, how they have placed first 'Lord' and 'Jesus Christ', and 'only-begotten' and 'Son', common names of the divinity and of the humanity, as the foundation, and next build thereon the tradition of the Incarnation and the sufferings and the resurrection, in order that, placing first the names of the two natures which are |169 indicative of the common [properties], the sonship and Lordship might not be separated and the natures in the union of the sonship / might not come into danger of corruption and of confusion. . . 38
How then does it appear unto you, O just judges? Because he has written the opinion which was pleasing unto him, and I also have written my opinion likewise, and further we have chosen you as judges, what think you of these things? What opinion have you of them? Who is just or who is unrighteous? And with what thought have you made examination? Tell us your opinion; write unto us as just judges. Have I lied and transgressed the faith of the fathers, because I have said unto him 39 that they began from here, and not with God the Word, but with one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God? You condemn me as one who has added thereto and you acquit him who has not entirely preserved their faith but has thought that they have made use of these terms fortuitously and without distinction. But I have said that they began from here not fortuitously but by the divine purpose. If I have done impiously therein, show me, and, if not, why do you repudiate as though the argument which I have made unto him were an impiety, [when I said] that they began from here because the [properties] of the divinity and of the humanity are common, as the names indicate, and that they wished to begin with these names / for the sake of complete and lucid instruction, as if the name of Christ existed truly in the two natures, man and God? But if for this reason, then you ought to condemn him also, for he has said that the natures which are combined to come together in union are diverse, but one Christ [is formed] of them both. There |170 resulted not one God the Word from them both, for the diversity of the natures is not removed because of the union. Therefore the two natures belong unto Christ and not unto God the Word. Either therefore condemn my words and his or, in accordance with his, consider me also innocent, since I confess all things. But if not, prove, either you or he, how he confesses that God the Word is in two ousias: of what divinity and humanity has God the Word been perfected by combination? For he has spoken of one Christ who is [formed] of diverse natures, of the divinity and of the humanity, and was perfected ineffably by the combination of the natures. And of what ousias? Of what divinity, of what humanity was God the Word perfected that God the Word should be in two natures? Either you or he, say unto us now also, although you have not said [it] before, say: God the Word is by ousia in them both, as you confess that Christ is in ousia in them both, [formed] from diverse natures. The union has not made void / the diversity of the natures. But you have said that God the Word is diverse natures. For if of one ousia there result two ousias, of the divinity and of the humanity, there has been a separation and not a union; but he says that Christ was in the union and existed in two natures. God the Word became flesh by union and not by ousia; how then does he indicate that the same is one, he who is two in the union and who is the nature? Or are nature and union the same thing, and 'in nature' and 'in union', and prosôpon and ousia? For although the prosôpon exists not without ousia, the ousia and the prosôpon are not the same.
How then have you judged, O wise judges? How then have you considered these [sayings] of the fathers? Do they agree with the Divine Scriptures in the terms and in the signification of the terms and have they made use of these terms zealously and clearly? And from here and from no other point have they been able lucidly to begin their teaching. But if [they began] from where the Holy Spirit guided them, that nothing might be abridged and that nothing might be superfluous and that they might do nothing in vain and by hazard, but everything with examination, [they acted] in such |171 wise that the things which appear in Christ----all the [properties] of God the Word whose nature is impassible and is immortal and eternal, and all the [properties] of the humanity, which are / a nature mortal and passible and created, and those of the union and of the incarnation since the womb and since the incarnation----are referred to one prosôpon, to that common prosôpon of our Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, whence the fathers began. And so by the distinction of language they have taught us 'The divinity is from God the Father, consubstantial with the Father, light from light, through whom everything was [made] which is on the earth and which is in heaven'. And then the incarnation of God the Word and of the humanity----they have said 'He came down and was made flesh for the sake of us men and for the sake of our salvation'. And then they have said in regard to the things of the flesh, concerning the generation and concerning the formation, that he was made flesh; in teaching they have said 'He was made flesh of the Holy Spirit and of the Virgin Mary'; they have made known this union whereby he was made flesh and was made man. For until his incarnation, they taught us everything in terms of God the Word and after he was made flesh they speak of this union which [proceeded] from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, of the birth and the flesh which was made flesh, the sufferings and the death and the resurrection and the ascension and the operations which made known that the body was united unto him as being animate and intelligent in order that we might suppose that the union was without confusion and further without change of ousia and of nature, or mixture or / natural composition, so as to result in the coming into being of one animal, yet in one prosôpon in accordance with the dispensation on our behalf, in such wise as to participate in us through humiliation unto death, even death upon the cross. But we shall participate in him in the name which is more excellent than all names, before which every knee shall bow which is in heaven and in the earth and beneath the earth and which every tongue shall confess. |172
The soul was not without will nor without reflection in the nature of the humanity, nor was the soul without perception as regards the animal perception of its being, as a result of the natural union of the body and of the soul. All the natural things, both active and passive, are in the work of nature and of the unfailing might [of God]. For the union of God the Word with the humanity took place not in nature, in such wise that the intelligence of the humanity was without activity and that it reflected with the intelligence of God the Word, not with the intelligence of the humanity, and that it perceived not in the union of the living soul, but in the union of the divinity, and that it lived [its] life and that it perceived, not by the activity of the perception of the soul but by the might of the divinity; for such a union as this is passible; as the soul naturally gives perception unto the body, so by means of this perception is given unto it the perception of the sufferings of the body, / so that the perception of the sufferings of the body is given by the soul and unto the soul; for it is passible. For this reason the union is in the prosôpon and not in the nature, and we say not 'the union of the prosopa' but 'of the natures'. But [there is only] one prosôpon in the union but in the natures the one and the other, as from the common prosôpon it is known that he took the flesh, the likeness of a servant, for his own prosôpon, and thereby he spoke in teaching and working and acting; and he gave his own likeness to the likeness of a servant and thereby he speaks as by his own prosôpon and by the divinity. For the prosôpon is common, one and the same. The likeness of the servant belongs unto the divinity and the likeness of the divinity unto the humanity. One and the same is the prosôpon but not the ousia. For the ousia of the likeness of God and the ousia of the likeness of the servant remain in their hypostases.
The union of the natures, in fact, was neither without will nor without imagination, as Arius and Apollinarius have said, but [it resulted] in the prosôpon and in the dispensation on our behalf and in the union of his image and of his likeness which is in our nature of soul and body, falling short of nothing except of sin alone. He comported himself [so] |173 not for the sake of the divinity, but that thereby it might make him combat against guilt by fulfilling all the commandments of the law / and the chief observances, in order that he might appear without rebuke in the choice and in the observances of the commandments, and that he who was without sins might be given unto death because of us, the righteous for the impious. What indeed is this defeat? And what is this victory? What is this equality of recompense for the conduct of God and of man? For it is the controller who is united in the hypostasis in such wise that he participates in the life and conduct and is overcome by death; the conduct also and the death and the resurrection are those of one who controls and who is controlled. For either God remains in his nature, as he was in nature, without sin, or those things which constituted the manner of life of Christ took place in deception since God the Word comported himself as a man. They both in fact were attracted and torn apart by one another, by the nature and by the will, and he also was torn apart. For the conduct [of his life] was by command: he was not of a nature unchangeable, unique and without master, which is not torn to and fro according to the will and plan of another; but, if there was in truth human manner of life and conduct, the conduct of God the Word was in nature, and in those [qualities] of the nature wherein he comported himself he indeed abode, in that he accepted the very nature and became changeable and variable. Therefore he comported not himself [after] the conduct of God but of that nature wherein he comported himself.
What then have you found in my letter, wherein I am impious / and [for which] you have condemned me and have regarded this man as one who fears God? First, then, I convicted him as one who lied concerning the fathers and abolished all the first principles of the faith, and of himself made a beginning whence of constraint he made even God the Word passible. Now 'God the Word' and 'Christ' do not indicate the same thing, either in the Divine Scriptures or |174 as he has said, although Christ exists not apart from God the Word. And I have neither instructed him in the custom of the Divine Scriptures nor shown him the things which happen from such and such terms. And I have praised him for the things which he has well said: that he has preserved without confusion the natures and their properties in such wise that God the Word was impassible even in the very union; and he makes his the properties of the flesh. I have proved unto him that they refer not unto his ousia but unto his prosôpon, so that his prosôpon is his own and so that all things indicate his prosôpon. All the things which [constitute] the prosôpon [constitute] not the ousia, for neither does God the Word exist in all the things of the ousia of the flesh, nor again also is the flesh said [to be] in all the things which belong by ousia unto God the Word, but in all the things which indicate the prosôpon and which are [therein], in such wise that the union without confusion is preserved also in the diversity of the natures / and the prosôpon of the union of the natures is undivided. And I have said unto him and have not dissembled that which I have not understood and about which I have disputed, and I have propounded the cause and the doubt which has been born in me, that I might not permit him to say aught of those things which he has formerly said.
For what then have you condemned me? Because I have convicted him of not having adhered to the words of the Fathers and of having, in opposition to their intention, made God the Word passible and created and made, and of having caused him [to issue] from things which existed not, having begun with him and having referred unto him all the properties ----and I taught him all things. For this reason do you deal harshly [with me]? Or because I have convicted him of lying concerning the Fathers, of having said that the Fathers called the holy Virgin the mother of God, without even making mention of the birth itself? For the sake of these things have you treated me as an adversary? Let none show favour unto any man. But if this phrase 40 has been employed in the discussion about the Faith by the Fathers at Nicaea, with [the |175 aid of] whom he combats against me, read it; or if it has been spoken by any other Council of the orthodox. For it is of the heretics, all of whom fight against the divinity of Christ, but it has not been spoken by those who have adhered to the faith of the orthodox. But if it were shown to have been said by a Council of the orthodox, then even I should confess / that I have been condemned as one who was on the opposite side. But if no one has used this phrase, thou hast risen up against them all to introduce into the Faith with boldness a new phrase which has not been accepted. And this it was that I required of thee in order to prove unto thee that it was not laid down by the Fathers; but it is for the Council, which has been assembled for this purpose and for nothing else, to judge whether it shall be laid down or not laid down. For it is not for them to be persuaded by me in any case, but for me to be persuaded of those things which they examine and judge and select for acceptance. For I have called you judges and have made you all judges of a just judgement, but that which justly belongs to the Council have I not given unto one man, who has conducted [his case] with violence and prevailed on the whole Council to adopt the faith which seemed [good] unto him.
What then have you done of those things on account of which you have been assembled? You have not settled what you ought, and you have broken away from the Council and have not waited for those who were absent. Nor have you observed what you ought toward those who were summoned unto the Council; nor have you assembled together as you have been summoned, but the judges have been as the accused wished. Instead of [being] the accused you have made him sit as the judge of [his] adversary. And how shall I call him judge? You have made him sit / at the head of the Council. And what shall I say of those who were present? And of those who were absent and of those who were not yet come? And you have given him authority over all, both over those who were there and over those who were absent, and over those who were alive and over those who were dead. Who of |176 those who have not chanced upon these things in the document which was [addressed] by them unto the Council in Ephesus, would believe them? Could a just judgement proceed from such a Council as this? Yet although I were supposed to say these things, because I have suffered, and not to have examined them with just deliberation, [and though] none were persuaded of my words, I would not indeed seek to have any help from men. For I am already being offered, and the time of my departure is come, that I may be with Christ, on account of whom he has fought with me. But [I am writing] that men may not be led astray from the right faith because of the name of the 'judgement of the Council'. For this reason have I said these things. I, however, have said less than the things which they have written; yet learn from those who have condemned me that there has not been a judgement and that I have not been condemned in judgement.
I indeed have spoken the [words] of the Fathers and have spoken those of the Divine Scriptures, and I first looked / into the plot which was being [made] against the Faith, and I first stated that it was the confirmation of the faith of the Arians on account of the hypostatic union, which resembled also [that of] the Manichaeans, in that he would have suffered being passible, and again [that of] Apollinarius, who agreed thereto with all his hands. And he 41 was carried away by all the heresies, since he declared it unlawful to predicate the properties of each of the natures in the union and referred them all, even those of the flesh, unto God the Word. And thereby you have thought that the orthodox were easily deceived by the heretics [into supposing] that they have none of those things whereof they ought to make use against them, since you have surrendered your mouths unto them, and you have bound your hands and your feet and have surrendered yourselves unto them. Either you will turn aside from your guilt or you will suffer wrongs without excuse for having, like irreverent persons, caused heresies to prevail against the orthodox. For supposing that he 41 be found [to be] an Arian, he will call you as witnesses against those who were assembled at Nicaea, as |177 though indeed they had openly risen up with audacity against Arius, to say what they ought not, namely, saying that he who is passible and mortal and made is consubstantial with him who is impassible and immortal and the maker of all created things. And supposing that he is a Manichaean, you will bear witness in his favour that, in that he suffered / impassibly, he suffered in schema. For he, who, when he is supposed to be suffering, suffers not, suffers impassibly: for he who was not [man] by nature, has not even died. You have hardly confessed the truth, and you have reprimanded the three hundred and twenty-eight,42 as not having spoken the truth through acceptance of persons. If in addition to this also you insist on saying: 'We do not say that God the Word died in nature, since the divine nature is immortal and impassible, nor in the semblance of the flesh, but in the nature of the flesh, which is passible and mortal, and that which God the Word became was flesh,' a heathen would accept this word, accepting [it] in the change of the likeness. And thou sayest that the Incarnation' took place through the change of the ousia without his own ousia and his likeness being changed: when he suffered in the passible nature, not before he came to be in the ousia. Why then do you not say the same things as we, when it is a question of the doctrine of the Incarnation; but why docs he lead us astray with the birth of a material flesh,3 with which God the Word was formed, and why have unconvincing and incredible fables been fabricated?
And if thou sayest against this, that the Incarnation of him who became flesh and man took place neither through change of ousia nor through change of likeness, but [that] this man who was taken----who was born / of a woman and suffered and died and rose and is ready to come to judge the quick and the dead----was changed into the ousia of God and was no more considered a man, except in name alone, and [if] thou meanest by this that God died and rose, the heathen also, who practises a religion which predicates the change of men unto divinity and therefore propitiates and serves him as God, would stand |178 by thee. How then, sayest thou, is the opinion of heathendom yours? You, who have combated against me on these [points] until now, are deceived, and thereby have you also deceived men. And if thou sayest that the Incarnation of God the Word took place neither by change of ousia nor by change of divinity and the body remained in the ousia without change, but [that] he2 became man with a view to the hypostatic and natural union, Arius also, who mocks at the three hundred and eighteen, would accept this confession: and you accept it and are not scandalized, and you agree with heart and mind3 to Arius who speaks truly when he claims that he became man in the natural hypostasis and was naturally united in hypostasis, suffering naturally by perception the sufferings of the body; him thou darest to call consubstantial, him who is the accepter of sufferings.
And if you decline this, as one who confesses not the soul and the body among the things whereof the Word has been constituted in the natural hypostasis nor [that] he suffered after becoming passible in a passible nature in regard to natural sufferings, he proclaims the / [doctrines] of Arius and Apollinarius. For Anus says: 'What does it serve thee that God should become a passible nature by the hypostatic union of the soul to suffer natural sufferings naturally in his body 'and in his soul?' Does he make him who is suffering all these sufferings consubstantial with an impassible nature? But Apollinarius condemns those who say these things while [otherwise] confessing like those who cleave unto his own faith, and commands them to keep aloof from those who say these things and to become his own partisans and to anathematize all those who dissent from him. If further he also is deposed for confessing neither the intelligence nor the will, for such reason as one who confesses not the Word in the flesh and in the soul and in the intelligence in the natural and complete union, you will not receive him, since he says all the [same] things as Arius. Let it be [granted] that he 43 is united to the soul and to the body and to the intelligence; but if it is an hypostatic and natural union, thou effectest an addition |179 and not a diminution and thou avoidest a diminution of the sufferings of the body in such wise as to make subject unto the sufferings of many sufferings him who is consubstantial with him who is impassible; great is the passibility of those who suppose this. For you give him the things which make [men] passible because of the hypostatic union, since he is united in a natural composition, so as to suffer without his will the sufferings of the body and of the soul and of the intelligence and [since] he is united in ousia and in nature, as the soul in the body endures / of necessity the sufferings of the soul and of the body. But thou makest him impassible. Then there has not been an hypostatic and natural but a voluntary union with the body and with the rational and intelligent soul which are united hypostatically and naturally in the nature of the man. But the union of God the Word with these is neither hypostatic nor natural but voluntary, as consisting in a property of the will and not of the nature. For the things which are united by the natural hypostasis have a natural and not a voluntary quality. For he took the likeness of a servant for his own prosôpon and not for his nature by change either of the ousia, of the ousia in the nature of the humanity, or of the humanity in the nature of the divinity, [so that] it was united and mixed with the human nature either by confusion or by a natural composition and a change of the activity of the nature; for this quality is changeable and variable. But the voluntary [activity] is neither passible nor changeable; it suffers not involuntarily in its natural ousia the sufferings of the soul and of the body. Those which are naturally united suffer indeed in ousia with one another, transmitting their own sufferings naturally and not voluntarily. For although he accepted them as sufferings voluntarily, when, however, he accepted them and suffered them, he suffered them naturally, in that he suffered them by a natural property and by perception.
/ If you say these things thus, you have incited them all and have become heathens in saying that which he 44 has said who said these things with irreverent audacity; they have |180 anathematized him,45 who said these things, and laid upon him punishment without remission and driven him out from the church and even from the inhabited world, as one who defiles the earth whereon he walks. How then do you say these things? But if he says concerning me: 'it is because he divides the natures into sundry parts and separates them and distinguishes them from one another, and not because he says these things clearly but because he distinguishes them into parts one from another and says: "one son of nature and one son of grace," as though there were two natures, and he distinguishes them, saying "I indeed distinguish the nature and I unite the adoration; because of him who is clothed I adore the clothing" ' 46 ----every one would say unto you 'O man, you have drunk mandrakes'.47 If you understand also the Father by the things which have been said by you, how do you say also of him who has not been kept separate even by one word, that he took and was taken and made it his own, and [how] do you call [him] man and God? For all these things belong unto those in whose doctrine the natures are distinguished, and not unto those who say that there is one ousia; for the union destroys not the diversities of the natures; but if the diversities of the natures / remain in the union, they are kept separate by the diversities of the natures, in so far as they are diverse. But how do you say concerning me that I separate the union by distance of space, since I say: |181 'because of him who is clothed I adore the clothing'? For the clothing is not apart from him who is clothed nor he who is clothed apart from the clothing but it is conceived in the same likeness. And for this reason it is not possible to adore him who is clothed apart from the clothing upon him, clothed wherein he is seated with the Father; for he is not seated with him without being clothed in it and that which is seated with him receives also adoration with him. When it is seated with him it is by all means adored not for its [own] sake but for the sake of him who is clothed in it.
By all means therefore we shun those who predicate the Incarnation [apart] from the union, either by a change of likeness which is [the view] of the heathen, or in hallucinations or in a schema without hypostasis [which] suffers impassibly, or in predicating the natural sufferings of God the Word, as being either by hypos tasis in the union or in flesh in the flesh either in an irrational or in a rational soul, and [in asserting] finally that the union resulted in an hypostasis of nature and not in a voluntary prosôpon, in order that we may not make the union of God the Word corruptible and changeable nor call it passible and necessary, but a voluntary union in prosôpon / and not in nature. Either they will renounce my words, admitting that the Incarnation took place in the nature, and will make the union passible and changeable, as Arius, or [they will make it] impassible, as the Fathers. Partisans of which side do you seek to be? It depends on you: [you are] either on the side of the heretics or on the side of the orthodox Fathers, or on the side of those who say: '[He is] neither passible nor corruptible,' or on [that of] those who [say that] the union appertains unto the hypostasis or on [that of] those who [say that it appertains] unto the prosôpon. But I say that the union of God the Word is neither passible nor mortal nor changeable. For these things let him who would anathematize me! I have kept without blemish the faith of the three hundred and eighteen who were assembled at Nicaca, saying that God the Word is unchangeable [and] immortal, that he is continuously |182 that which he is in the eternity of the Father. He was not [formed] of things which existed not nor of any other hypostasis, and there was not when he was not. Eternally [exists] the Father, eternally the Son, eternally the Holy Spirit; but the flesh which was made flesh, which was of the Holy Spirit and of the Virgin Mary, exists not eternally, but there was when it was not; and it is of another ousia and of another nature and of another hypostasis, [to wit, of that] of men, and not of the ousia of God the Father----changeable and mortal and passible and corruptible. Not from [being] the ousia / of God the Word was it changed into the ousia of the flesh, but [he had] an ousiôdic flesh and a natural flesh which was not changed from its own ousia. Nor again was he changed in his likeness from the ousia of God into the ousia of the flesh, he was flesh not in schema and in semblance of flesh but in the ousia of the flesh, of the ousia of the flesh; the ousia of the flesh was not changed into the ousia of the divinity and made God; he was made flesh and made man neither by confusion nor by mixture, and he was composed neither in one plain ousia and uniquely after his kind nor according to a natural composition after one kind of animal. Nor further was he naturally united by a natural union in hypostasis, and suffered and was in a natural union, [the natures] participating in the same things for the sake of the natural participation in the sufferings.
For every natural composition, which participates by participation in one passible and changeable nature, and is completed in regard to the natures by the very nature of God the Word, [is completed] not in a natural change but exists voluntarily, in such wise that the union of the natures takes place in his own prosôpon and not in his own nature; yet the natures remain in their properties, and there is one prosôpon without separation and without distinction, having made them its own for the prosôpon. The divinity has obtained a likeness by the ousia of the humanity and the humanity has obtained / a likeness by the ousia of the divinity, so that there is one prosôpon of the union and so that the [properties] of the |183 humanity belong unto God the Word and those of the divinity unto the humanity wherein it was made man [and so that] they were closely united unto one and the same with a view to the dispensation on our behalf, since men were in need of the divinity as for our renewal and for our formation anew and for [the renewal] of the likeness of the image which had been obliterated by us: but [men had need also] of the humanity which was renewed and took its likeness anew; for the humanity was congruous, so as to preserve the order which had existed. For he 48 who was honoured with the honour which he gave him and rendered not unto him his [due] honour for the honour which he received showed that he had lost the honour wherewith he had been honoured. For the one also was honoured as the other;48 and he accepted him not for himself but regarded him as an enemy. When the other 49 was in these [circumstances] he thus preserved himself, making use of the things belonging to the other as if of his own; he truly preserved the image of God and made it his own: that [it is] which is the image and the prosôpon. For this reason there was need both of the divinity to renew and to create and to give unto it[self] the likeness, so that [it might be changed] from its own type to the likeness of a servant; and there was also need of the humanity, so that the likeness of a servant which was taken should become the likeness of God and God the likeness of a servant and that the one should become the other and the other the one / in prosôpon, the one and the other remaining in their natures; and he preserves an obedience without sin because of his supreme obedience, and because of this he was given unto death for the salvation of all the world.
Not indeed as Arius and Apollinarius are those who foolishly say that God the Word in his grace accepted an earthly mode of life and an obedience unto death through his Incarnation. For this reason the Incarnation took place in the nature of man by a natural union, in such wise that the divinity was made man naturally instead of the soul and comported itself and suffered truly by natural perception in |184 order to be given unto death on behalf of all men and in respect of death to accept naturally the passibility of the soul in the union of the natural hypostasis, being torn asunder by force. For this reason, the latter have attributed the Incarnation of God the Word to one nature of man by a natural composition and to an incomplete man where the ousia of God the Word is instead of the things which are lacking from the flesh for the completion of the nature of the man, being commanded and performing the things which are comprised in the things commanded and enduring unwillingly the whole human conduct truly in observances difficult and painful and full of suffering, not doing what he willed through fear of transgressing the command, thirsting and hungering and fearing [with] human fear, willing / [with] a human will. And he is in the body, in all the things of the soul, making it in stature according to the formation and model of the sensibility, understanding, learning, being perfected in flesh in the nature of the soul by the natural and hypostatic union. And they make void the voluntary union in virtue of the prosôpon of the natures, establishing a natural and involuntary property in such wise that God the Word participates in the sufferings of the soul and of the body; the property [of participation] by force and not by will but natural[ly] by hypostasis is a union of the natural hypostasis naturally, so that the nature may become one which suffers.
But one ought to be neither Arian nor Manichaean, [according to] whom the Incarnation took place in schema or in the nature of God the Word and [who] refer all things to him in their doctrine: the manner of life and the sufferings and the death. For the nature of God the Word sinned not nor transgressed the commandment, so that God comported himself and observed all the commandments and died for us as one who was found without sin by reason of his manner of life. Through man [came] death and through man the resurrection. For this reason also it was needful for the whole man, for the purpose of the Incarnation of God the Word, being completed in body and in soul, to comport |185 himself in the nature of men and to observe the obedience and the moral life of human nature. And they long for and honour the name of the Mother of God, since they say that God has died. And, further, as for the Fathers who even unto death have withstood / the heretics who said 'Mother of God', they, however, have in no place indeed made use of these terms nor have they employed them in the documents of the Council. Was it because they knew not? Or because they hated it? Perhaps they had some such word in their thoughts whereby indeed to adhere to the divine teaching; and they heeded not the raving of [their] enemies and gave no opportunity to diminish the divinity by making it passible and mortal. For not he who is in name a theologian is to be called a theologian, but he who is a theologian in fact and in name does not leave alone those who are ready to make him made and created; it is not he who provides matter for blasphemy nor does he admit that God the Word surely came forth from the Virgin Mary, as one who exists and has existed before, and he declines the [doctrine] that he was born a man from her as one who has not existed but has come into being. [Art thou] as one who says that God the Word is in two natures, God and man, and that the man, when he was born, was in the nature of God the Word, or [that] he was changed into another ousia of man; and sayest thou thus that he was born? For indeed [in that case] he would not have been of man, but of God the Word would he have been, and [that] in such wise as to make use of the schema of a man but not of the ousia of a man. |186
[BOOK II. PART I.] 50
Yet some one perhaps will say, 'Thou hast read only the letter; but read / also thy blasphemies which [are found] in thine instructions; for the letter perhaps was written by thee with observance and caution as though it was written unto him,51 whereas thine instructions, which were delivered authoritatively by thee, clearly explain thy purpose. And for this reason even thy letter has not sufficed us, but we have also examined thine instructions in order that we might be accurately instructed in all things concerning thee. Nor even so have we claimed authority for ourselves nor have we behaved boldly, but we have placed before ourselves also the instructions of the Fathers, and we have compared [thine] with them and, having thus made our examination with all accuracy, we have also pronounced sentence, making use of the Fathers against whom thou hast fought. For in that thou hast been summoned and hast not hearkened, we have done all these things rightly; we have condemned thy letter, we have examined thine instructions and we have also studied the instructions of the Fathers as law. What then ought we to have done and have not done? But he,51 since indeed he was present, said and taught the things which he ought to say, whereas thou didst then decline [to come]; but now thou dost blame us, calumniating us. Why dost thou not rather accuse thyself than us? For we judge not things invisible but visible, and, if we have made omissions and if we have acted in ignorance, say now if things are such as they are; and if we were / not justly stirred up against thee, thou oughtest to have said it then and not now.'
But I have much whereof to convict them concerning those many things which they have done and many things also which they have omitted. But I pass this by now, lest any one |187 should say that he is now saying them because of the inadequacy [of his case]. But among those things which they have done against me, I convict them of having not justly condemned me, for they have told lies and have deceived many without having convicted me by examination, but according to what he 52 demanded. Now he demanded that the things should not be duly examined, lest the condemnation should be his, but he persuaded them all as God, as one who knows the secrets which are in the heart, and those who took part with him so presented him in the sight of many as [to seem] one who was the avenger of God, namely Christ, and he permitted me not to speak otherwise. And thereafter he carried every one with him against me, so that they were even unwilling to hear a word of mine, as one who, while declaring utterly void [the doctrine] that Christ is not man, spoke of Christ himself [as] man in ousia but God in equality of honour.53 But he anticipated me and spoke against me as making God himself a man, / as if he conceived of Christ as nothing else whatsoever than God the Word. And of constraint I directed my words against him, [asserting] that he is also man, and I proved it from the Divine Scriptures and from the teachings of the Fathers; and he further made use of this against me, as one who said that Christ is only man, having dissembled whatever I had said and confessed as regards that which one required him to confess and [which] he was unwilling to confess. For I rebuked him not for not having confessed that Christ is God, but because he did not say that Christ was man whole in nature and in moral life and that God the Word became not the nature of man but in the nature and in the manner of life of man, in such wise that God the Word became both of them in nature. And these things I shall prove from the things which were written when he took [extracts] from my teachings and from his teachings----whether they were thus the same as in the beginning or whether out of enmity towards me he has changed them into the opposite----and from the |188 inventions [spread abroad] by the device of the heretics, but in reality [by men] such as Arius. When he speaks against the ousia of God, he refers all the human qualities to the nature of God the Word by the hypostatic union, so that he suffers in natural sensibility all human sufferings.
/ 'From the Book of Nestorius, from the sixteenth chapter, concerning the Faith.' From which book of mine? From which sixteenth chapter? What is it that you sought out, when there was none to argue against you? But this concerns me not much, whether it be clear or whether it be in need of investigation. I desire, however, to persuade you all concerning the things whereby he has deceived many and drawn them away from the Faith, as if indeed there had been an examination touching the Records [of the Council], concerning things whereof they have accused me by anticipation without examination, which they have accepted [as] mine and his without examination. . . .
When Divine Scripture is about to tell of the birth of Christ from the Virgin Mary or [his] death, in no place does it appear that it puts 'God' but either 'Christ' or 'Son' or 'Lord', because these three are indicative of the two natures, now of this and now of that, now of the one and now of the other. For example, when the Book relates unto us the birth from the Virgin, whom docs it say? God sent his Son. It says not that God sent God the Word, but it takes a name which indicates both the natures. Since the Son is man and God, it says that God sent his Son and he was born of a woman; and therein thou seest that the name is put which indicates both the natures. Thou callest [him] Son according to the birth from the blessed Virgin, for the Virgin Mother / of Christ bare the Son of God. But since the Son of God is twofold in natures, she bare not the Son of God but she bare the humanity, which is the Son because of the Son who is united thereto. |189
I demand then of you to reflect accurately on these things; for I pass by the things which they have omitted, and they have clearly not preserved the coherence [of the argument]. And he accuses me of these things as if I were dividing Christ and making [him into] sundry parts, the divinity by itself and the humanity by itself, while making use of [the words] 'honour' and 'the equality of one' in such wise that they tend to bring together in love and not in the ousias things far apart. Thus he accuses me both as touching the divinity and as touching the humanity, [of saying] that God the Word is flesh and man but [that] the humanity is Son, Lord, and God, which has taken place through love and through coherence. This is his principal calumny, so that you, since you are judges concerning this, ought at all times to take heed that, if you find that I have imagined thus----condemn me and I too will condemn myself. And also I will beseech you to accept on tradition my condemnation, which is just, although I should have combated ten thousand times and cite convincing arguments to establish that I make use not of ousia but simply of love, / and that thereby he is called Lord and Christ and Son. But if I have said the contrary, let them prove that the union is [made] from nature and [that] the union belongs to nature. But, so far from a union in nature, I predicate one prosôpon, one equality, one honour, one authority, one lordship; and, in short, [I insert] these things also in virtue of the union of one prosôpon in all those things wherein the prosôpon of the one and of the other exists in nature; for the prosôpon of the natures is not one nature, but it is in nature and is not nature. For the Son of God the Father is by nature consubstantial with the Father and that which the Father is in his nature the Son also is; for that which the prosôpon is in nature, the Son, |190 the Father also is not; for the Son, who is in nature, is not the Father nor is the Father the Son, who is in the nature of the Father and is the Son by nature; for in prosôpon he is something else. But they are not one thing and another but one only in ousia and in nature, without division, without separation, without distinction in all the things which appertain by nature unto the prosôpon; but he is other by the prosôpon. But certainly as regards the unity of the divinity and of the humanity it was not so. In whatsoever the prosôpon is by its nature, in those very things it exists by union as in one prosôpon even in another ousia. For he has taken him for the prosôpon and not for the ousia nor / for the nature in such wise as to become consubstantial with the Father or another son without there being one and the same Son. For the prosôpon of the divinity is the humanity and the prosôpon of the humanity the divinity; for it is the one in nature and the other in the union. Investigate therefore and see what it is that he has written: 'Whoever predicates two natures in the Son and who predicates each, one of them by itself as in the remoteness of the distinction of God by himself and man by itself.' For if I had said merely God and man and not 'two natures, one Christ', you would have had an opportunity to calumniate me for calling a man God and him man. Because of my having predicated two natures, man and God, I have not predicated two natures of man, though he is called God on account of the union, nor yet two natures of God, although he is called also flesh in the union. Thou hadst not [any ground] for the calumny, not even one, because I said that one Son and Christ indicate two natures; I said, however, that the Son is God and man. In the first place I said that the name of Christ and Son indicates two natures, and I came at the same time to speak also of 'the natures '; but since the Son is God and man, he is not predicated / solely but he is two natures. But thou art enraged against me because I have not called God the Word two natures by change of ousia; for it is not to be imagined otherwise than that I said that he came to be in the nature of the humanity and the Son was man in the union |191 and not in nature. Has this that I said alarmed you, or that which he also has said, that the flesh, when it was born, was said to have been born? Because one considers the birth of his flesh clearly his; he too has thus said that the flesh was born but [that] he made it his own. What then have I said at all new, [in asserting] that it is said that, when it was born, there was born of the Virgin Mary a man, the Son of God, since this humanity was the Son of God by union with the Son and not by nature? For by the union God the Word made these [properties] of the flesh his own, not that the divinity was born in the birth of the flesh, nor again that the flesh was born naturally in the birth of the divinity, but [that] by the union with the flesh God is called flesh and the flesh by union with the Son, God the Word, is called Son; otherwise he has not been united, and we calumniate him [by denying his union]. Who has deceived you? For this is the agreement of men deceived. For there is this agreement concerning the two natures, that in fact [the word] 'Son' is indicative of two natures, indicating Christ and also Lord. 'The natures which have been combined in a true union are diverse, but the Son is one with them both,' the natures remaining without / confusion in the union: 'The diversities of the natures are not made void on account of the union.' And again, it is by union that the flesh is son and not by nature . . . ,54 for 'that 55 wherewith he sits with the Father is not alien unto him'.
Ambrose also has said:
When the Son of God speaks by them both, because there are two natures in him, he speaks, but he speaks not continually in one manner. Reflect on him, now in glory and now in the sufferings of man, since as God he teaches the things of God, because he is the Word, but as man he teaches the things of man, since he speaks in our own ousia. He is the living bread which came down from Heaven; this bread is the Body, as he has said: This bread which I give unto yon is my body . He it is who came down, he it is |192 whom the Father has sanctified and sent into the world. Does not the Scripture also teach you that not the divinity but the flesh has need of sanctification?
How have you cited these things and anathematized mine? For I have not said anything else. . . . 56
But Athanasius leaves thee not alone, saying:
These things did not take place artificially, far from it! as some have supposed, but in reality, truly, our Saviour became man [and] the salvation of all men came about. For if he had been artificially in the body, as they say-----but that which is said [to be] artificially is a fantasy----the salvation and the resurrection of men would have been found by him to have been fictitious as the impious Manes said; but our salvation exists not in fantasy [and our salvation takes place truly not for the body alone but for the whole man, for the soul and for the body].57 Human therefore is that which [issued] from Mary, according to the Divine Scriptures and truly it belongs to our Saviour. . .
Let none admit the saying that God the Word is in the body artificially but [that he is] God as [being] God the Word, who existed of old and exists eternally, and came to be in the bodily frame and exists also in the bodily frame, without having come forth out of his own ousia into the ousia of the |193 flesh, or having endured the birth of the flesh but from our ousia. . . .
For human is the nature which [issued] from Mary, as the Divine Scriptures say, and truly it belonged to our Saviour. For [as regards] the ousia of God the Word and as regards the ousia of man I dissociate myself from you, and not as regards the name; for I have said 'I object not to the appella-tion of the Virgin, the Mother of Christ, but I know that she is to be honoured who received God, from whom the Lord of all came forth'.
These things thou acceptest not; and how shall one leave thee alone / and believe thee, as one who sayest in this manner that God was born? 'Human therefore is he who [was born] of the blessed Mary,' although a thousand times thou wouldest dispute against Athanasius. God the Word existed in the body, in that which took the beginning of its coming into being from the blessed Mary; [yet] he took not the beginning of his coming into being. In the beginning was the Word, and God the Word exists eternally.
Confess that the natures exist, confess as thou hast been bidden, confess that God wished to rescue thee by means of the body and that the body was not changed from the ousia of God into the ousia of the flesh; it was formed and fashioned and grew and was perfected in the nature of men and was born, but from the bodily frame of our own form, of the seed of men; for it was of the seed of Abraham. Why dost thou treat these things of the body as hallucinations and makest void the things of the bodily frame and assignest them to God, in such wise as to bring the two generations 58 into doubt, in that thou makest even the generation of the bodily frame without beginning, from God the Father? For thou sayest that God the Father is body and man, both subject unto beginning and subject unto completion 59 and that he was |194 born of the Blessed Virgin, because he became man. How sayest thou 'the birth of the body'? For to God the Word alone thou dost attribute a generation from God the Father and from the Virgin. Speak clearly and confess the human nature, / [born] of the Blessed Mary, as the Divine Scriptures say. And that whereof inquiry was made is solved, that the ousia of God is not subject unto beginning and growth and completion, although it is so said through the revelation which [was made] little by little.60 Wherefore makest thou void the names indicative of the humanity, but wouldest at the same time make us believe in the divinity, as if it were not unbelief [to say] the divinity came forth from her, just as thou makest void that which indicates that it derived not [its] beginning from her? And thou makest void the humanity which was born of the blessed Mary, for thou sayest that she bare not the man; since, as demons that deceive, showing that man is not man, thou confessest the man but [it is] God the Word and [then] thou confessest God the Word but [it is] the man. For thou deceivest men, changing the ousias from the names, for thou sayest 'man' and assertest the ousia of God the Word; and again thou sayest 'God the Word', and assertest the ousia of man, and then thou exaltest it with the name of God the Word. They have nought to say. 'It is the human nature which is from the Blessed Mary'; she is then the mother of the man who derived beginning from her and gradually advanced and was perfected. 'He is not by nature God, although he is so called on account of the revelation which [was made] little by little. . . .' 60 She is therefore on the one hand by nature the mother of the man, by revelation on the other hand she is the mother of God, if by revelation / and not by nature thou sayest that he was born of her; he then came forth united to him who was born of her in flesh. Wherefore dost thou in part assert and then make void these things, like miracle-mongers, who make visible things invisible and in semblance make things which are visible invisible? |195 Christianity exists in truth: deceive not .... 'He is human who was born of the Blessed Mary ....' 'He who took his beginning and gradually advanced and was perfected, is not by nature God, although he is so called on account of the revelation which [was made] little by little . . . .
Do you believe that they who say these things are [to be regarded] as truthful? Do you believe that which you have written----for you have written these things----or do you not believe them? Or do they say that Christ was a mere man, because they say these things concerning him? They say that God was not in the body artificially, saying of God that he began and gradually advanced. For how is [either of] those which are united [to be] called mere? But thou considerest mere those which exist not both in ousia: the divinity which is not the humanity and the humanity which is not the divinity; but these things are foolish, as I suppose, in the mouth of one who has said that the difference of the natures is not made void by the union. Thou sayest therefore that very thing which I also [say], commending [it]: that the divinity exists united to the humanity and the humanity exists in nature and united / to the divinity. And dost thou anathematize those things which [are found] in my [works]? Anathematize those which are thine, if it is right to call thine things of which thou art not confident that they are true, seeing that thou remainest in opposition to the Fathers and to the Divine Scriptures. For admirable and commendable is this discovery of heresy, wherein thou sayest [of] all these things that none confess them; thou alone hast set up thine own dogma in opposition to all men and thou dost suppose that they are held by all men. But, on the contrary, as one who has led all men through partiality, as partial thou art hated of all men.
In order that the truth which is preached by all men may be revealed, which surely indeed thou knowest, but which thou darest not say, it suffices therefore for those who seek to know thy mind to learn also of those things for which |196 thou blamest me, as though I were saying that the ousias are divided by remoteness in space, but participate together in equality by conjunction and by love and not by that whereby they naturally exist, [and as though] therefore we make a distinction in the doctrine of the natures, for the divinity is one thing and the humanity another. But by the conjunction of these things there is not one and another in the prosôpon.
Thus thou hast made men conceive of me, but it seems that I say the contrary of that which thou dost testify against me; for I indeed unite the ousias, but by the union / of the ousias I assert one prosôpon in one equality in everything whatsoever that appertains to the prosôpon, to which also both one ousia and another belongs, by separation and by being kept remote, but in the same [prosôpon]. Let us however also pass on as quickly as possible to other things, lest any one [there be for] whom in these things or by means of them there is blasphemy, and these also should be refuted . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
That therefore which we were saying: 'Fear not to take Mary [as] thy wife, for he who is born in her is of the Holy Spirits For if thou sayest "was born in her" or "came into being in her", that does no violence at all to the sense; for he who is born in her is of the Holy Spirit. Yet if we say that God the Word was born in the womb, it is indeed one thing [to say] "he was with him who was born" and another "he will be born ". For "he who is born in her is of the Holy Spirit", that is, the Holy Spirit has created that which was in her. The Fathers therefore, in that they were acquainted with the Divine Scriptures, have seen that if "he who was born" is added to "he who was found in bodily frame", God the Word is found either [to be] the son of the Spirit or to have two Fathers. But if we say "He came into being", God the Word / is found to be the creature of the Holy Spirit. And, shunning the word "birth", they have laid down He came down for us men and for our salvation and was |197 found in bodily frame". What means "He was found in bodily frame"? [Does it not mean] that he was not changed from the divinity into the flesh? For in "He was found in bodily frame by the Holy Spirit" they concurred with the Evangelist. For the Evangelist also, when he came to the Incarnation, shunned predicating the birth of the Word and laid down the being found in a bodily frame. How? Hear.
And the Word became flesh. He said not that the Word was born through the flesh. For wherever indeed the Apostles and the Evangelists make mention of the birth they lay down that the Son was born of a woman .... Look well unto what has been written, I pray thee; where they employ the term "Son" and [the phrase] He was born of a woman, they lay down that he was born, but where they make mention of the Word, none indeed of them dares to say "the birth through the humanity ". Hear the blessed John the Evangelist, when he came to the account of his Incarnation, hear what he has said: The Word became flesh, that is, took the flesh, and sojourned among us, that is, put on our nature while living among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory of the Son; he said not "we have seen the birth of the Word ".' |198
So then I have stated the reason which I should have supposed satisfactory, / on account of which the Fathers said in their laying down of the Faith not that he was born of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, but that he was made flesh, in order that they might not say that the Holy Spirit was Father or that which was created [was] Son, but rather that he was made flesh by the Holy Spirit and of the Virgin Mary, in order that they might attach 'became' to the flesh, because he was made flesh. But as regards the history of [his] being made, what do you say? Speak openly. Reprimand those who have clearly blasphemed, [asserting that] 'He was born of the Holy Spirit'. If he was born, the Holy Spirit was the Father of the Son or the creator of God the Word; yet these, I have said, [are things] which neither the Fathers have said nor do I say. Have I blasphemed in saying these things? Or have I surely calumniated the Fathers? If it is [possible] for you to show that the Fathers have said these things, speak openly. Which of these things? Is God the Word a creature or the son of the Holy Spirit? And if he is not a creature, flesh which is fleshly, then is he no more a creature of the Holy Spirit; speak openly. 'He was made flesh' means that he was in every sense made flesh in his nature, and it was not another who was made flesh; he is said to have been made flesh. But he was made flesh in his own ousia, in the flesh which came into being and was born of the Holy Spirit. For 'he was born', as thou sayest, is contrary to what thou hast said; since, when he was born, the flesh is said to have been born, as though he made it the birth of his own flesh, whereas he was not / made flesh in his [own] self but in its own ousia. Therefore 'he was made flesh' and 'he was born' do not signify the same thing, and for this reason they have laid down 'he was made flesh' and not 'he was born'. [This is clear], since they have taken the word 'became' for the flesh; and for this reason also the Evangelist said that he became flesh and said not that he was born, so that by 'became' he limited not God the Word. But, as touching the flesh which came into being, it became his flesh. And |199 God the Word sojourned among us; God the Word 'became' not, for he existed.
And hear them; for you would not disclaim these men whom you have brought in accusation against me. Speak then, O Ambrose, disregard not him who is oppressed; be not at the beck and call of the calumniators, and condemn not innocent blood before it has been heard. I say that the flesh came into being of the Virgin Mary [and] appertained not unto God the Word; for I confess him neither made nor come to be nor created. Yet all these rise up against me like swords, nor even are they willing to hear my speech entirely, and in regard to these things they cite thee among the witnesses. Of death I was not afraid, [I] who have been thus calumniated, but of having been condemned as impious in thy prosôpon, thine! I have spoken in accordance with Ambrose and I deny not aught that I have said, although they have drawn the sword against me. / This have I said: 'In consequence of these things he was ready to come into being of a woman, according to the [word] "became"'. Thou 62 limitest not the divinity, but the body which was |200 assumed: namely, he who descended is the same whom the Father has sanctified and sent into the world. Does not also the Scripture teach you that the divinity was not in need of sanctification but the flesh? If then they have deceived, they have deceived themselves and not me.
And thou also, O Gregory the divine, what then [sayest thou]? What opinion hast thou concerning these things? I ask, not that I know not, but because in thine own name they desire to crush the truth. What knowest thou of him who was by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary, who began and gradually advanced and was fulfilled? I say not in the prosôpon, but in the ousia. What else at all wouldest thou concede except something which thou hast conceded unto them in written works? [To wit], that the man who was taken . . . . 'He indeed who begins and grows and is perfected is not God, although he is so called on account of the revelation which [was made] little by little.' 'For one and another were those of which our Saviour was, if the invisible and the visible are not the same, God on the one hand who was man and man on the other who was made God.'
But speak thou also, O wise Athanasius; for thou also hast been calumniated with many calumnies such as these and hast endured [much] at the hands of the Arians, on behalf of / the tradition of the Son, God the Word. What opinion hast thou concerning [the statement] that 'he was born of the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary'? In the nature and not in the prosôpon which [results] from the union 'we say that one and the same Son and none other was born of Holy Mary'. But [we call] this one and him only, who was born a son, Christ, God the Word together with his flesh, and the same one flesh with God the Word. But 'in ousia God the Word is of God the Father, and the flesh is the flesh |201 which he put on from the Virgin 'that it might come to be. We say not one and another, for there is one prosôpon of both natures. But he who by nature came into being by the Holy Spirit, what was he? And what was his nature? And of what nature was the Virgin, his mother? For inquiry is made of this. Hear them all.....I have said he is man who was of Mary, according to the Divine Scriptures, and that he was truly our Saviour. 'For if artificially the Word was in the body, as they say, he then who is said [to be] artificially is a phantasy. The salvation and the resurrection of men will be found to have been fictitious, as the impious Manes has said; but our salvation is not in phantasy nor in the body alone but in the whole man: to the soul and to the body truly salvation belongs. Human therefore was he who was of Mary, as the Divine Scriptures say, and he truly it was who .... [was] our Saviour . . . .'
/ .... So indeed we name Christ as concerning the flesh, owing to the conjunction with God the Word, recognizing him since he is visible as man.
'Hear Paul, who says in two [passages]: Of the Jews is Christ as concerning the flesh, he who is God over all:' He confesses the man in the first place and then, owing to his conjunction with God the Word, he calls him who is visible God, that none may suppose that Christianity is the worship of a man.' 63
That none may accuse me anywhere, take heed and look well, in what sense I say 'a mere man who is far removed from divinity'. I say 'Christ who [is] in flesh', as also I predicate the same in the divinity. For I have not said 'a fleshly Christ', but 'Christ who [is] in flesh', I speak of the flesh of Christ by reason of the conjunction with God the |202 Word, as being indeed united to and not distinguished from God the Word. Nor indeed with equality was it united but to God the Word himself. And of him who was visible in ousia, I said that he was of the Jews and not God the Word, since I confess that the man in respect of ousia and of nature is of the Jews and not God the Word in respect of nature. And I said 'man in nature apart from the nature of God the Word' / but 'he is God by virtue of that union which came about in the prosôpon'. Art thou angered with me on account of this?
But hear what Athanasius proclaims unto thee: 'Human then is he who [was born] of Mary, according to the Divine Scriptures; neither in semblance nor in phantasy is he our salvation and the resurrection of men, as the impious Manes said; nor only of body but of the whole man, of soul and of body, became he truly our salvation.' Human therefore was he who [was born] of Mary, according to the Holy Scriptures and truly was it he who was our Saviour.....
Why therefore deniest thou our salvation? Why therefore have you condemned as impious whosoever denies not but confesses [it]? You are then either denying that he is human, as the Manichaeans, or, if you deny not, you cannot condemn him who denies not but confesses [it]. Hear Gregory proclaiming that he who was taken was human; for 'he who begins and gradually advances and is perfected' is not God 'although he is so called on account of the revelation which [was made] little by little'. Seest thou that he says that he who was taken, who begins and gradually advances and is perfected, is man by nature but God by revelation? What then is the obscurity before your eyes, that you see not these things? But if you were to accuse these my [opinions], you ought not to contrast the one [statement] with the other, since it is [useful] in supporting them. / But if you accept these and such like things, it is not right to write of them as impious. I have brought these my charges against those who deny the humanity which has been taken from us and who confess as the Manichaeans; and not simply that, but I have laid down |203 the properties of the natures and of the one prosôpon: and [it is] moreover in some respects two, in that on the one hand which concerns the natures, but in other respects in the union. And thou hast accepted the prosôpon of those men 64, as if indeed thou wert one of them, whereas thou art in everything the enemy of those who accept my words. For we take from these men and we cast before thee [our doctrine], proclaiming that our salvation has not taken place in phantasy, O men. 'Human is the nature which is of Mary, as the Divine Scriptures say . . . . He indeed who begins and gradually advances and is perfected has not become God, although he is so called on account of the manifestation which [took place] little by little.....' 65
But even as we call God the Creator of all and Moses a god, for [it is written]: / have made thee a god unto Pharaoh; and Israel the son of God, [for it is written]: Israel is my son, my first-born, and as we call Saul the anointed, for [it is written]: / will not put forth mine hand against him, seeing that he is the Lord's anointed; and [as we say] similarly also of Cyrus: Thus saith the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, and [as we called] the Babylonians consecrated, [saying]: / indeed / have commanded them; they are consecrated ones, and I shall bring them; so also we call our Lord Christ and God and Son and consecrated and Christ; yet, whereas on the one hand the participation in the names is like, the honour on the other is not the same. |204
Wherein do you blame these things, O calumniators and wise men? Because I have said that, even as we call God the creator of all and Moses a god, so also [have we called] our Lord Christ God of all and Maker? lint, because Moses is called a god and Christ God and moreover Creator, we do not speak of Moses himself as of Christ; or, because Moses was a god unto Pharaoh, do we say that he was moreover the Maker of all? Far from it! For community of names constitutes not community of honour and equality. For the honour of the Creator of all and that of Moses are diverse: that of the one on the one hand [being] that of the creator, that of the other on the other hand [being] that of the creature which has been commanded to become the chief. Thus also both our Lord and Israel are called son; yet the community of names constitutes not a community of honour: but thus [the one] is by nature God, consubstantial with the Father, Creator and Maker of all; but not the other. So also [with] every single one of the rest of them. As we say of God 'Creator of all', so also do we say of our Lord Jesus Christ 'God and Son and Christ'; for as regards each one of these things which are called by this name, there is therein a difference between the nature which created / all and the honours which are surely bestowed; for the rank and the honour which is more excellent than all is the [divine] nature. For I have said that the name of 'Christ' and [that] of 'Son' are indicative of the two natures, of the divinity and of the humanity----[a thing] with which there is nothing equal in those things which have been said----in such wise that it is not right to take heed of the name but of that which it indicates. Christ on the one hand is God of all and Creator; on the other hand Moses also is called a god, but he is not called in the same way a god nor is he conceived as God.
But they suppose, then, to overwhelm me on the subject of the humanity, [saying] that, if he, who was of Mary, was human nature, as the Holy Scriptures [assert and] yet was God by manifestation and not by nature, thou callest one of them by grace God and Son and holy. But in answer to you |205 I say this only, that, if you, like Gregory and Athanasius, confess him who was of Mary and who began and gradually advanced and was perfected, [to be] human nature, while [he was] God by revelation and distinct from all men through the purpose concerning that name 66 whereof he made use for the distinction, to the same extent the Creator is [one] with the creature because there is one prosôpon ---- thus I also confess. But if you confess not the human nature which began and gradually advanced and was brought to fullness, as Athanasius and Gregory have said, / then you are not to be excused as [one of the] orthodox, but stand forth with the Manichaeans. But Gregory, Athanasius and Ambrose ask you if the flesh is consubstantial with us and if the soul is consubstantial with us. Whatever it is, it is also in the ousia of man; therefore it is man, distinct from us in honour and in rank. In such wise as Israel is called son and as Moses is called a god, so likewise Christ [is to be called] God, [but] not by nature, and Son of God, [but] not by nature. And as God himself was made man but in the nature of men, he was made man in him who [issued forth] from Mary.67 But if he has not been made man in man, he has saved him[self] and not us; but if he has saved us, he has been made man in us and has been in the likeness of men and has been found in schema as a man and has not himself been man.
Say then these and such like things openly. Why then do you make pretence of not speaking of these things, although you dispute concerning them as if [they were] the things which you are saying, whereas you are not saying them? And those things which you say you say in schema, and you are unwilling to call him who was of Mary human nature, as is said in the Scriptures. Him who calls him not human nature, like one of |206 men, of the natural body of our fathers, whence we also have come in soul and in body----and he has / all [the qualities] of the rational part of the soul except sin----him Gregory accuses [in the same way] as the Manichaeans: for 'he who begins and gradually advances and is perfected is not God, although he is so called on account of the revelation which [was made] little by little.' In that which concerns the humanity he is not by nature divine but by revelation. But in the nature of the divinity there exists a great difference between those who are called gods or lords or christs, but in the humanity he is like them all, and there is one prosôpon in two natures. He is God and he is Lord and he is Christ; for he makes not use of a prosôpon which has undergone a division but makes use of it as of his [own] prosôpon. For all the things appertaining to the ousia are his by virtue of the union and not by nature. Or do you not admit that Christ in his divinity is God and maker of all? He is not like Moses, although Moses is called a god. For community of names constitutes not community of honour; for there is one honour of the servant and one of the lord, although in that which concerns the body he is distinct from the servants.
But if thou sayest that the body and the nature of the body and the soul, rational and intelligent, abide without change and without transformation, but dost not admit the things which indicate the soul and the body, [some] of them in the union and [others] of them in the nature, taking / all of them of one nature, thou beliest the truth, making yea nay and nay yea. And in order to deceive thou callest him who was of Mary human nature, as the Divine Scriptures [affirm], and accountest not among his own [qualities] according to nature those of the humanity. But in virtue of the prosôpon thou raisest him above all humanity, in such wise that he on the one hand, who is eternally even as he is and began not nor gradually advanced nor was perfected, is one, but he who began and gradually advanced and was perfected both in the |207 union and in the manifestation in one prosôpon, is another, God who was made man and man who was made God. He was not transformed and changed from his divinity, just as also the humanity of Christ is not changed in nature from [that of] men except in honour and in prosôpon; for he is God of all and Lord and Son; and in all the things which are the divinity in ousia, in them exists the humanity in honour, not by another honour but by the same as that of him who took the prosôpon: the humanity making use of the prosôpon of the divinity and the divinity of the prosôpon of the humanity, since for this it has been taken and for this he has taken it, not indeed so that we should not confess him who was taken but that we might confess him. Confess then the taker as he took, and the taken as he was taken, wherein [each is] one and in another, and wherein [there is] one and not two, after the same manner as the manner of the Trinity.
/ Likewise from the same, from the fifteenth roll.
Have this mind in you which was also in Jesus Christ, who, being in the likeness of God, emptied himself and took the likeness of a servant. He says not: 'Have this mind in you which was also in God the Word, who being in the likeness of God took the likeness of a servant,' but he puts the name 'Christ', which is indicative of the two natures, avoiding all risk, and he names him the likeness of a servant which he took and [that] of God, those things which are said in regard to the duality of the natures being divided without blame.
It is also right after this to examine the opinion of every one and first mine; [to ascertain] if it is, as he 68 says, that I say one thing and another and distinguish the divinity somehow as it were by remoteness of place, and confess not that he is one and the same. Yet, avoiding all risk, I have said that he |208 named 'the likeness of a servant' and 'God'; we understand neither that which took nor that which was taken in distinction but that which was taken in that which took, while that which took is conceived in that which was taken; for that which took, therefore, is not conceived of itself, nor again that which was taken, so that he is not [conceived to have been] in the very prosôpon of that which took and of that which was taken.69
/ Thou dost censure me, therefore, not for this but because I distinguish the properties of the union which belongs to each of the natures, in such wise that each one of them subsists in its hyposiasis, and I say not that they are referred to God the Word as one who is both of them in ousia; or that the [properties] of the flesh were taken upon God without [their] hypostasis,70 that he might be revealed only in the likeness of the flesh and that he might make use of and suffer all the [things] of the flesh, whether he was changed into the nature of the flesh or they 71 were mixed in one nature, or [whether] the [properties] of the flesh are referred to the ousia of God by confusion or by alteration or by natural composition for the fulfilment of the natural composition, in order that he might suffer passibly the sufferings of the body, without the bodily frame's fulfilling any purpose in its own nature in the dispensation on our behalf, and without its performing human actions, either by the will of the soul or by the human imagination, or by the sensibility of the body, but by the imagination and by the will of God; still by the sensibility of God he is sensible of all human things. But in name alone he has a body, without hypostasis and without activity; and for this reason thou callest him man as something superfluous only in word and in name, in that thou art not content to predicate the |209 ousia and activity of man or the existence of two natures, each of them with properties and hypostases and ousia.
But some one perhaps will say: 'It is because thou confessest not that / God the Word and Christ are the same thing.'
For this reason then thou 72 dost censure those who say that Christ is one [thing] and God the Word another, apart from Christ. If then I said 'Christ' and 'God the Word another, apart from Christ', or 'Christ apart from God the Word', you would have said well; but if I have not said and do not say this but confess otherwise, still now saying this same thing, pervert not that which I say, and in the very same thing thou wilt find the distinction of whatsoever it 73 indicates. Now I have said that the name 'Christ' is indicative of two natures, of God indeed one nature [and of man one nature 74]. One indeed is the name which indicates two and another [that] which indicates one which is not anything else. Even as if a man were to say of man too that the name 'man' indicates one thing and 'rational soul' another. [It is] not that man is one thing and the soul another apart from man. For he who says 'man' speaks not of him [as] without a soul, because except for a soul he is not man. But the [name] 'man' on the one hand is indicative of the union of two natures, of the soul and of the body, but that 75 of a nature, for the nature is one thing and the union of the natures another. What then? God the Word is nothing else apart from Christ, nor Christ apart from God the Word. Why dost thou make use of the names indistinguishably, as though the same thing were indicated by this or / by that? 76
But 'Thou makest a division, so that one says not "God the Word" but "Christ", as though "Christ" were one thing and "God the Word" another.'
But hear also from us: He is not one thing and another; for he would be one thing and another if Christ were apart |210 from God the Father. But, if there is not the very same thing in ousia, [this] indicates one thing and another, [for example], the visible and the invisible; and those things from which Christ is [formed] exist in their own ousias and God the Word is not in the nature of both of them. But thou confessest distinct natures of the divinity and of the humanity but one Christ from them both; thou sayest not that God the Word himself has different natures but one; but there is a distinction between him and his concomitant. Thou sayest therefore that Christ himself is one thing and another, because thou predicatest of him the different natures of divinity and of humanity. But the nature of God the Word is one, not different natures. Or, as I have said, [the truth is] that he is not one thing and another, in that Christ exists not apart from God the Word nor again God the Word apart from Christ, but he indicates one thing and another, because Christ is of God the Word and of humanity by union, whereas God the Word is one nature and not of both natures, and it is not his by union to become God the Word.
/ And thou too bearest witness, albeit unwillingly, to these words which I say; but forsooth thou bearest witness when thou sayest that the natures which have been combined in the union are different, whereas one Christ [issues] from them both. For if thou indicatest not the one and the other, wherefore hast thou not been the first to make bold to say that which thou wouldest persuade me to say: that one [issues] from them both, God the Word? But thou wast unable to speak or I was unable unmistakably to hear thine impiety, and for this reason thou hast passed it by without indicating it; thou hast been constrained clearly to confess the truth, so that thou art thereby [proved to be] without reverence and hast no place of refuge. The one and the other indicate one thing and another, but it is not one thing and another: for it is one thing and another from which our Saviour [issues], but he is not one thing and another----far from it!----as he also is in respect to the Trinity. But thou referrest to God the Word the things of the flesh, so that he sees and speaks and suffers |211 the things of the flesh, but only as surely making use of the flesh, as the Arians say when they attribute the activities and the sufferings to the divinity naturally, and as Apollinarius [says when he maintains] that instead of the intelligence it 77 performs naturally the operations of the soul and of the body. Thus this man 78 also makes use of God the Word in all of them, both in the body and in the intelligent soul, that he may suffer the sufferings of the body and perform the activities of the rational soul, [making them] the manner of life and conduct of God the Word. And the properties of his own prosôpon thou dost attribute to the nature / of God the Word and not to the prosôpon of the humanity, which is moved to and fro by the humanity in accordance with the nature of man, but [according to you] by God the Word.
But what is [this] whole man who neither acts nor is acted upon in accordance with the nature of man? In name indeed alone is he man and in name body and in name rational soul, he who is not moved to and fro in the nature of his being, neither as soul by purpose and will nor again as body by sensibility of soul, but [in whom] God the Word has been established to become the will and the purpose and the sensibility in the body and in the soul in such wise that God the Word should act and suffer sensibly these bodily [sensations] and those of the soul: anger and wrath and lusts and fear and dread and thoughts and operations and judgement and voluntary choice; all these things he does and suffers in the place of the soul and in the place of the body, in such wise that by the victory of God the Word won in suffering and nature that nature which had been guilty was victorious, since he had given unto it his own victory, in order that it might be victorious through and by him who had assumed it for his nature. All these things are changes of the nature of God the Word, being naturally given to him that he might suffer, and [that] thou mightest predicate of him a nature passible and changeable and variable. For he, who by his nature was impassible but who through a passible nature became the nature of the other, was passible and corruptible |212 and variable; for he, who by nature is impassible and / unchangeable and invariable, does not even suffer in any manner in the human nature, since it is not his to suffer in his nature. But if thou sayest that the one, whose it is not to suffer in his nature, has suffered in nature, it is a folly to say that he has suffered in another nature; but he who comes to folly surely deceives, and like the Manichaeans makes our very salvation to have taken place in deception.
Speak; what say you? Which is the party of the orthodox: [that] of those who teach that God the Word is unchangeable and invariable or [that] of those who predicate of him the human nature [received] from Mary, who consider him a rational and intelligent soul and a whole man and then deny the properties of the humanity and confess not that they are such as they are in the nature of the man, but attribute to God the Word all things as to a. changeable and variable [being]: birth and growth and upbringing and gradual advance in stature and in wisdom and in grace and the commandments and their observance and their fulfilment and the suffering and the Cross and the death and the resurrection? What say you? Instruct men. How ought they to think and to confess? Is God the Word two ousias in nature, or dost thou imagine that man is in his nature two ousias, of divinity and of humanity? Or is God the Word one ousia, and has his own ousia received no addition / as that which has existed eternally, and is the ousia of man one, of the nature of men, and was it also like the nature of the sons of man and did it [so] comport itself? Thou confessest not these things, nay more thou deniest them.
God the Word was made man that he might therein make the humanity the likeness of God and that he might therein renew [the likeness of God] in the nature of the humanity; and thereupon he renewed his material elements and showed him [to be] without sin in the observance of the commandments, as though he alone sufficed for renewing him who had |213 originally fallen by the transgression of the observance of the commandments. Otherwise he gave himself for him to observe them because he sufficed not to keep himself without sin. In chat case our fall remains untended as a paralytic man who tends himself and remains incapable of walking, but for whom the attendant walks or whom he carries, saying not to him: 'Arise, walk, since thou hast indeed been healed that thou mayest walk.' For this reason he took the likeness of a servant which was without sin in its creation in such wise as even in the observance of the commandments to receive a name which is more excellent than all names and so that whatsoever came into being through the renewal of his material elements might be confirmed by observances and by prudence; for which reason also the renewal of the material elements took place through the incarnation by means of which he might contend against defeat. But if the purpose also of his having been made man / had not been fulfilled, it 79 also would surely not have taken place at all, but all things would be fictitious and foolish, both the disobedience of the first man and the things which made him guilty unto death; for he who had not a nature which could observe [the commandments] would also have been unable to observe them. For this same reason the second man also observed [them] not, but God lived in his stead and observed the commandments, because he was in that nature which sins not. And if this is so, what was the need for the life of the humanity to show that he who was God the Word was able to observe those human things which he who was man was unable to observe? But [there was such need] that he might show that he had not authority, when he wished, to rescue him[self] from death, because the Father wished it not; for all [men] he comported himself and kept himself without sin and, as one who has not sinned, he gave himself for salvation on behalf of all men.
These are [the doctrines] of the orthodox, who confess one |214 ousia of the Father and of the Son and one will and one power; these are (the doctrines] of those who confess that the things of Christ are neither folly nor fiction. He did nothing in schema, in hungering and thirsting and fearing, in learning, in not knowing, and [in] all those things which could convince [one] that he was a man, because / he was God in nature [and] in truth and man in nature and in truth. And because of this it was needful for the divinity to renew the humanity and for the humanity to be renewed and to take the very image [of him] who created it but not his own ousia; and it was needful that it should observe prudently the conduct of the man who had fallen, because especially for that it was created, to conduct itself according to the law which is in the nature of men and to preserve the very image of the Creator by the observance of the commandments without fault, the divinity making use of its own prosôpon in the likeness of a servant in order that the humanity by means of that prosôpon wherein it contended might be victorious, its victory being thereby confirmed. For since the renewal of its material elements it had the image of the sonship from him who created it; but it 80 had need also of a recompense for the observance of the commandments, in order that the prosôpon might be common to him who gave and to him who for the sake of his obedience received the image which, because Adam preserved it not when it was given to him in his material elements, was taken from him. Destroy not therefore the pattern of the Incarnation, but concede the properties of the divinity and concede the properties of the humanity and concede one prosôpon of the union, and all of them [will be] true and all of them orthodox. If you are willing to hear, hear the same things concerning them according to the witnesses which you have cited.
'I said: Have this mind in you which was also in Jesus / Christ, who, being in the likeness of God, emptied himself and took the likeness of a servant. He said not: "Have this mind in you which was also in God the Word, who, being |215 in the likeness of God, took the likeness of a servant", but he took the name "Christ", as a title indicative of two natures, avoiding all risk, and named therewith [both] the likeness of the servant which he took and God.' I said: one and the same Christ, two natures,' 'the likeness of the servant which he took and God,' without distinction. Quote these words of Gregory: '[There are] indeed two natures, God and man, but not two sons; for one and another are those from which our Saviour is, but not one and another----far from it!----but one by mixture, God who was made man and man who was made God'; and again: 'He who begins and gradually advances and is brought to fullness is not God, although he is so called on account of the revelation which [was made] little by little.' He predicated not two natures of God the Word and he came not into being of two natures, neither has the man two natures nor is it [the case] that he is of two natures, but God and man are two natures. For he took a name common to the natures, Son and Saviour, and without separation he is named God and Son; and he 81 divides this twofold [Son and Saviour] into those two natures, from which our Saviour [came into being]; and by the union that which is one thing is called another: thus / 'God who was made man and man who was made God'----not because he was changed in respect to his divinity. And 'He who begins and gradually advances and is brought to fullness is not God, although he is so called on account of his revelation which [was made] little by little.' Whom then does he call one? And whom two? And whom in ousia? And whom by union?
But Ambrose also has said the same and not strange things concerning the union of God and of the flesh: 'The Son of God speaks in both of them, because in him there were two natures. Regard in him on the one hand the glory of God, on the other hand the sufferings of the man.' For he also predicates the union of the two natures, not that two natures |216 [were] one nature but that two natures [were] in the one prosôpon of the Son:----' the glory indeed of the divinity, but the sufferings of the humanity.' For he calls not the one son and God the Word another son, but he indicates something else by prosôpon and ousia. As then is the name 'God', so is the name 'son', the one indeed indicative of the natures but the other of the prosôpon of the Son. The same is God and Son, and there is one prosôpon of the two natures and not of the one ousia. For this reason both of them [are] one Son and in one Son are both the natures. One God the Word is not both natures nor is one divinity both natures; for there has not been confusion nor has there been mixture nor again a change of ousias resulting in one nature of the ousia nor again also a natural composition resulting in a composite nature. / What then have you heard [that is] strange in my words----and you have condemned me, and you have laid down these things? For the former has laid down the name 'Son' and the latter 'Saviour' and Athanasius 'Lord'. But how have they who are called Christians dared to doubt whether the Lord, who was born of Mary, is son in the ousia and in the nature of God the Word, but was born in flesh of the seed of the house of David? For the flesh was of the Virgin Mary. For thou also knowest that he who was of the Virgin Mary was human nature, in nature indeed and in ousia Son of God, in the ousia and in the nature of God the Father, but in flesh human nature from Mary. For he 82 lays down the common name 'Lord', which is conceived of nature and in nature, as well as the things which are indicative of the properties of the natures, indicating them both, the divinity and the humanity, the one from God the Father in nature and the other of a woman in nature. In calling him who was of God the Father 'human', he calls him not of God the Father in his nature, but rather in the human properties he indicates two natures. He is not making the human nature nor the divine without prosôpon and without hypostasis. Nor has the Incarnation taken place on our behalf as something |217 superfluous, unreal, in such wise as to refer human [attributes] to God, as the Arians say that he suffered in nature our own sufferings, in his own nature and in his own prosôpon, the flesh adding not anything [thereto]. But since the humanity is understood completely as the nature of man, it has completely / all [the qualities] of the sons of man, [acting] and suffering, as the nature of men is wont [to do].
Likewise from the same, from the sixteenth roll.
'That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow which is / ; / heaven and on earth and which is under the earth and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Because of him who is clothed I honour him wherewith he is clothed, and because of him who is invisible I adore him who is visible. God is not distinguished from him who is visible; for this reason I distinguish not the honour of him who is not distinct; I distinguish the natures and I unite the adoration.
I seek and would persuade you prudently to look well in every place, lest he 83 blame me for breaking up into several parts and dividing the divinity and the humanity in the likeness of things which are distinguished in place from one another. How is he who is clothed distinguished from his clothing and one who is concealed from one who is revealed? As we have added in our very words: 'God is not distinct from him who is visible.' . . .
But thou sayest unto me that I distinguish the natures. How then are those natures which are indistinguishable distinguished? For in the formula they are known as ousias without confusion, without mixture, in such wise that in the |218 union both the natures are preserved with their natural attributes and naturally with the properties / of the ousia, so that the divine nature is conceived in nature of God and the human nature is conceived in the nature of the humanity in the ousia. He [himself] distinguishes in several parts, he who says that the humanity is conceived by nature in the divinity but that the humanity is not conceived to be the divinity, and that God the Word was not in both the natures either in schema or without the substance of the flesh or in passibility or in the action of the sensibility and in the nature of the flesh. For if he 84 were not so conceived, neither is he to be otherwise conceived without limiting by distinction him who is infinite and unlimited. For this idea he has also in the very thing which he says in his letter: 'The diversities of the natures are not made void by reason of the union'; for in the natural differences he distinguishes the things which are united, having distinguished [them] indistinguishably, for he has made the distinction by the word ousia. For the word and the idea of divinity are one thing and that of humanity another, since things which are distinguishable are distinguishable. But I predicate two natures, that he indeed who is clothed is one and he wherewith he is clothed another, and these two prosôpa of him who is clothed and of him wherewith he is clothed. But thou also confessest 'of two natures'. Neither of them is known without prosôpon and without hypostasis in the diversities of the natures. There are not two prosôpa of the sons conceived nor again two prosôpa / of the men, but of one man who is moved in the same manner even by the other. For the union of the prosôpa took place for the prosôpon and not for the ousia and the nature. It is not indeed that one ousia without hypostasis should be conceived, as if by union into one ousia and there were no prosôpon of one ousia, but the |219 natures subsist in their prosôpa and in their natures and in the prosôpon of the union. For in respect to the natural prosôpon of the one the other also makes use of the same on account of the union; and thus [there is] one prosôpon of the two natures. The prosôpon of the one ousia makes use of the prosôpon of the other ousia in the same [way]. For what ousia seekest thou to make without a prosôpon? That of the divinity? Or that of the humanity? Therefore thou wilt not call God the Word flesh nor the flesh Son.
But if thou predicatest God the Word [to be] in the two natures, God and man, but the man [to be] nought, it is not right to think aught else of thee [than] that either thou speakest only of the name and the schema of man without the nature at all, after which God the Word was named, or [thou speakest] as though the humanity added not anything in nature to the prosôpon of the dispensation on our behalf; or, in order that God the Word might be able to be revealed and suffer human sufferings involuntarily, so that while the humanity was suffering without sensibility, God the Word was suffering the sufferings of the body / and the sufferings of the soul and the sufferings of the intelligence and was acting and being acted upon----so for this reason thou makest all of them God the Word's and dost expel the humanity. If after this thou dost decline to confess two natures with me, by the same argument decline also to say that God the Word was made flesh and [renounce] the flesh in which he was made flesh and was made man. [It is] likewise both in regard to the man and in regard to God. But he who speaks so 85 makes |220 not two Gods the Words nor two fleshes, but makes confession completely, without diminution, of the divinity, and of the humanity in which it was made man, that the humanity might not be conceived [to be] fictitious, nor further that by a change of ousia and by a change of likeness the nature of God the Word might even so become the nature of a man. Neither by mixture and confusion nor by a change of ousia, nor again by a natural change of composition of the humanity, is he conceived; for all these things are rejected and corrupt and such as befit paganism and heretics and corrupt the properties of all natures.
But, O excellent judges, do you wish to cite the witness which [was borne] by the Fathers, which was written by them, that I may make use of it; that in my making use of indubitable witnesses you may learn that I too have said the same things, and [that] you have condemned me as one who says them not and have condemned me in raging anger and in darkness? For whatever / else have I said other than that which Gregory has said? 'One thing indeed and another are the things of which our Saviour is [formed], if the invisible is not the same as the visible and that which is timeless as that which is time; yet he is not one thing and another----far from it!----for they two are one by mixture, God on the one hand who was made man, man on the other hand who was made God.' See then that he calls the clothing visible but him that is clothed invisible. For God is one thing and man another, but Christ is not one thing and another but one in prosôpon by union: [that] of God who was made man and [that of] man who became God. By man indeed is it said that God was made man, and by God is it said that man was made God. It was not that he was changed from the divinity; God indeed remained God and was made man, and man remained man and was made God; for they took the prosôpon of one another, and not the natures. Therefore [they are] one thing and another, and [he is] not one thing and another in prosôpon. For in that same doctrine by which it is said that man was made God men by all means attribute unto him |221 adoration and service. In him, through whom and by whom it befell him to be made God, [he is adored] with one [and] the same adoration although he is conceived as one thing and another in the natures. And he is without distinction in the union, but in view of the natures which are distinct he both is and is conceived one thing and another.
Now Athanasius also has said things which agree with this: 'Now that the Word has become man and has made the properties of the flesh his own, / the same are not therefore imputed to the body because of the Word which has come to be in it.' For he said that God the Word has come to be in the body as one who is clothed in the clothing and the invisible in the visible, not as though they had been confused nor as though they had been changed, but as though remaining in both their natures and making the very properties common to him who acts 86 and to him who is in his own ousia,87 and he 88 possesses all those things which are made [the common] properties. And it is evident that he says two: 'God the Word and the body in which he was and whose [properties] he made his own in order that those of the one might become the other's and those of the other the one's.' But this God the Word remained impassible even in the body, nor yet was the suffering of the flesh brought nigh unto him, because God the Word who was in him was born of God; because of the heavenly Word which was in him he became heavenly, but because of him wherein he was he also was adored with God the Word who is adorable. Because of him who was clothed I honour the clothing, for he was clothed in the likeness of a servant, as Gregory said: 'The King of Kings and Lord of Lords is clothed in the likeness of a servant.' 89
Why then have you accepted these things but accused of |222 impiety my words and not those also of them who have confirmed my own words? [Is it] either because you suppose that even these which in letter and in spirit are the same / are not to be rejected in [the rejection of] mine own words? Or [is it] because you make void [both] the former and the latter, that they may not be spoken, and further employ these of mine, having destroyed him who spake them? And you too, though involuntarily, are witnesses unto me and you bear witness unto me by those [words by] which you suppose that you undo these of mine, since you also are in agreement with them and undo yourselves, because you are speaking against yourselves. And if I were able to have judges unlike you, I should have had no labour to convince [them] that it is the same idea, and so on; and I do not suppose that it would be right to toil much.
Likewise, from the same, from the seventeenth roll, concerning the faith.
God the Word indeed was Son and God, and was with his Father even before the Incarnation, but in the latter time he took the likeness of a servant. Yet having been formerly son and having been [so] called even after the taking he could not be called son by distinction, lest we should introduce two sons into our faith; but because he adheres to him who has been son from in the beginning, we cannot make him who adhered unto him distinct in the honour of the sonship----in the honour / of the sonship, I say, and not in the nature. For this reason the Word also is called Christ, because he has continuously adherence in Christ.
But in order that we may not say the same things [and] tire the reader with the same [subjects], let us pass on to |223 their testimony which they have chosen, as they suppose, against me, and which they have set down as seemed good to them; whereby I have proved and shall prove that nothing strange has been said by me [and] that I have been condemned in this judgement without examination. Hear what Gregory, bishop of Nazianzum, says of the things which the former have written. . . .
For we [distinguish] not the man from the divinity; we call him one and the same thing; for | we call him] not originally man but God and Son and only-begotten before the ages, who was not mixed with the bodily frame nor with the things which are in the bodily frame but in the end took also the man.'
How then does it seem to you? That it is against [me]? Compare them both with one another. 'For God the Word, even before the Incarnation, was son and God and was with the Father.' Set down the [words] of Gregory: 'Originally indeed not man but only God and Son.' These [are statements] which are supposed contradictory by you; quote those which have been spoken by me [to see] if they are applicable. 'But in the last times he took the likeness of a servant.' Set over against them [those] of Gregory: 'But at the end he took also the man.' Lest / they should be supposed to be contradictory by you, set down those things which have been said by me: 'But he was before the other and he was called Son, but after his taking he could not be separated nor distinctly distinguished nor be called Son.' Cite [the words] of Gregory: For also we separate not the man from the divinity.' Quote the rest of mine (which thou cuttest short) as having been laid down by me: 'That we may not speak of two sons.' Set down |224 those of Gregory: 'But we say that he is one and the same.' Quote the rest of my [words]: 'But because he adheres unto him who was in the beginning son; he who adhered unto him cannot receive in distinction the honour of sonship, by honour, I mean, and not by nature.' Set down the words of Gregory: There are indeed two natures, God and man, as also [there are] soul and body, but the sons are not two; for those from which our Saviour is [formed] are one and another; yet he is not one and another. Far from it! For both of them are one in the union.' So he has made the distinction in the nature and not in prosôpa, in saying 'One and another, but one son'. And again: 'by nature' is other than 'by union', as he is called 'other' in prosôpon and not in nature. For after the flesh God the Word is flesh, but after the divinity the flesh or the man is called Son, in such wise that also after that flesh which has been taken God the Word is called Christ. Read those [words] of mine even as they have been written. . . . 'For this reason also God / the Word is named Christ, because he has continuously adherence in Christ.' Quote those of Gregory: 'For [there are] two of them in the union, God who was made man and man who was made God.' For by adherence unto man God the Word is said to have been made man, even as also man is said to have been made God by union with God the Word. For he calls the union a 'mixture '.90
Quote the [words] of Ambrose: 'Does not also the very Scripture teach you that not the divinity needs sanctification, but the flesh?' After the flesh therefore which has been anointed or after man God the Word is called Christ, as Ambrose has said. But after the flesh he is named flesh or after man man; is not Christ to be named after the flesh which has been anointed? And after the flesh he is named |225 flesh; yet they make not two fleshes nor two men after the man who is named God the Word. Because God is named Christ after Christ, does it make two Christs? Or preserve harmony between you and the Fathers as regards 'in the union' and as regards 'in nature', and as regards 'in ousia', and as regards 'the property of the prosopon', seeing that he has given us his and taken ours.91
And thou dost concede unto him all the properties of the flesh and the sufferings and the cross and death and dost not concede that he should be truly Christ by reason of the man who was in truth anointed, without there being two Christs, since also [there are] neither two fleshes nor two men. / But let us add also the rest: [there are] neither two births nor two sufferings nor two crosses nor two deaths nor two resurrections from the dead nor the rest [of them], nor everything else which thou referrest from the flesh into God the Word. He 92 then changes it from the flesh [only] in name and makes all of them [the property] of God the Word naturally and is grieved with those who speak the truth, as though they were making two sons. But when thou speakest, thou dost shun change and transformation and illusion and supposition, and thou dost pretend to be suspected of saying these things with intent to deceive. But when I say these things, thou leapest from thy place as if I were speaking of two sons; and again thou deniest and pretendest not to deny.
In this indeed lies the distinction between us, as touching what is in the natures and what in the union, in order that we may not deny the things appertaining to the natures on account of that which is predicated in the union, and again that we may not suppose that to be nature which is predicated of the union on account of that which is in the natures. In [regard to] the things which thou dost agree not to be predicated of the union, thou claimest as though they were in the nature and permittest not the mention of the union. But, being unable to speak of it when thou excusest thyself, thou settest therefore about accusing me and regardest me as |226 impious, although in excusing thyself from the things whereof I rebuke thee thou bearest witness unto me that I am pious; / and the same things are taken as impious in me but fair in him. Or perhaps they issue from thine own knowledge, that thou mayest strive and labour on their behalf! Yet, for all that [thou admittest them] of necessity and by constraint, hardly dost thou admit it and confess in him these human qualities. In what other things then more than these art thou confident of a just judgement? Even however in the following you have the same examination that by the same means you may confirm these my [words].
Likewise from the same, from the seventeenth roll: 'Concerning the Faith.'
Let us keep without confusion the adhesion of the natures. Thou therefore confessest God who is in man, but I worship the adhesion of the divinity [where]by man is adored together with God Almighty.
But that we may not make use of the witness of any other, it is fair that we should make use of his own testimony concerning these our [questions, of his] who says: 'We are keeping without confusion the adhesion of the natures, in that the diversity of the natures is not made void by reason of the union.' Thereby he indicates one and the same, and further he indicates God who was in man. God indeed was impassible, in a passible bodily frame. Therein lies the diversity, nor does it indicate / identity. 'I worship the adhesion of the divinity where[by] man is adored together with God Almighty,' and 'the body indeed wherewith he too is seated with the Father is not a stranger unto him'; we have not quoted [these] that thou mightest disclaim them, but that thou mightest not blame the things which have been well said by thee. But you, O admirable judges without justice, you have not understood these things when they were |227 read before you; or else they have surely not been read or you have only been careful of this, that you might anticipate those who were about to come to the examination.
Now I pass by the [words] of Ambrose who says that the union of God and of the flesh is without confusion: 'In both of them there spake the Son of God in whom there are two natures, man and God.' But Athanasius also says: 'If God the Word were in the body as it were artificially, as these men say, that indeed which is said artificially would be a phantasy; in regard to him both the salvation and the resurrection of men would be found a phantasy'.
But let us again speak of the divine adhesion, since thou shunnest indeed the term 'adhesion' as impiety, thou who sayest also this, that whoever says [' adhesion' says] that it has adhered to him as in the prophets or by grace and not that it adhered by ousia, that is, that it will be adored with him in virtue of the union. And again from Gregory: 'God indeed who was made man, but man who was made God.' For this was not / his on account of his own nature, but in virtue of the union of the divinity; for in the adoration of the divinity which is united unto him he is adored with it, not in his own adoration. Just as 'He was made God' is not' He was changed into the divinity', so he was not made God of his own nature but by the union of the divinity. For he is adored with the adoration of the divinity which is united unto him and not with his own adoration. As being made God is not to vacate humanity, so he was not made God of his [own] nature but by the union of the divinity. Things indeed which are diverse in ousia but are adored with a single adoration are said to be adored together; but when they are mentioned as though in the union of the prosôpon, since there is no distinction in the prosôpon, how can one be separated and be said to be adored [apart]? But when mention is made of the ousias, on account of the distinction which exists between them, it is said: 'He is adored with it' because [he is adored] as if in both ousias, just as it is said also of the |228 Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, in so far as they are in the union of the divinity, that 'God is adored', and, in so far as they are distinguished in the prosôpon, although they are not distinguished in nature but remain always in their being, we say that the Son is adored with the Father and with the Holy Spirit, in order that we may not, like Sabcllius, make the prosôpa without kypostasis and without ousia. For he who would suppress [the saying] that the Son is adored with the Father / suppresses [the saying] that the Son exists in hypostasis. So also concerning Christ: when we speak of the prosôpon, we say that the Son of God is adored, concerning also the flesh as united with him; but in discussing the natures and speaking of two natures, we say that the humanity is adored with the divinity which is united with it. And he indeed who would hinder the saying of 'two natures' and 'him who is adored with it' would suppress [the saying] that' the humanity and the divinity exist in ousia and in hypostasis', even as has been our argument also concerning the Trinity, as also Gregory says. Our [words are] like those indeed of the Fathers. Therefore look well into the judgement which has been [passed] on these things, as they have been doing everything at haphazard, fleeing from the examination as from fire.
Likewise from the same, from the sixth roll. Ponder the things which follow immediately thereon: That he may be merciful and a faithful chief priest in the things which concern God. In that indeed he has suffered and been tempted he is able to succour them that are tempted. Therefore he who has suffered is the chief priest, but the temple is passible, not God the impassible who has quickened the passible temple.
Who indeed can undertake the advocacy of blasphemies such as / these? I called the temple passible and not God |229 the quickener of the temple which has suffered. For this you have condemned me like the priests for blasphemies, because
I have said that God is incorruptible and immortal and the quickener of all. Or contrariwise [can he be] corruptible and mortal and in need of life? 'For does not also the Scripture teach you that the divinity has not need of sanctification, but the flesh?' All this Ambrose proclaims unto you and you hearken not, or rather, you hearken and hearken not, you see and you see not, and you accept things which are inconsistent. How therefore do you accept these and have not accepted mine? Naught that is strange have I said, nor again have I written aught that differs [even] in small details from his own 93 [words]: In that he has suffered and been tempted he is able to succour them that are tempted.
Now he proclaims the nature which has suffered, and you have no need to learn of me or of others. 'The Scripture proclaims it: "Confess therefore the glory of God and the sufferings of man."' Ambrose tells it unto all of you. Why are you frightened of accepting these [words] of Ambrose? And in that you ban my words [you ban] his also. These things he has said; for these things you have condemned me; then not me but him also, for I have said the same things as he, those which you have quoted. Who among men will / change these things and be able to accept them as the reverse? I should have had no need of much examination to establish my [words], if they had come up for examination and for judgement, and I should have been teaching in no other manner but by means of what they have said and what they used in [their] witness. Who had confidence in the judgement? And who [was it] that fled from him and carried him off by force, and wherefore? And it was by all means evident even to the unintelligent.
Thou hast said that he was impassible in a passible body, and thou accusest me as if I were speaking impiety [in saying] that the temple of God is passible and that the quickener of the temple is not passible. If thou art saying with truth that |230 God is impassible in a passible body, then hast thou not made use of this term 'impassible' merely with intent to deceive, in order that men may let thee by all [means] say and maintain that God is passible and mortal, while thereof accusing me who say that the temple of God is passible and that the quickener of the temple has not suffered? But you have learned how wise is the judgement of the judges, and I have made you know for what cause I have been judged. But the rest of these things also it is fair to read.
/ Likewise from the same; from the twenty-seventh roll. That you may learn how close was his adhesion unto God, [know] that even in the infant the flesh of the Lord appeared; for the child and the Lord of the child were the same. You have praised my argument, but [beware] lest you laud it without examination; for I have said that the child and he that dwelleth in the child are the same.
Suppose, then, that I have spoken thus; I turn not back from 'the child and the Lord of the child are the same'. I have said that he is the child and he that dwells in the child, but I [will] explain in what manner the child and the Lord of the child are the same, in order that thou mayest not suppose of me that I predicate them both of God the Word in ousia, as if he were in the two ousias. But, inasmuch as he appeared a child, he was of our own nature, made and created; inasmuch as he was concealed, he was Lord and Maker of the child which had been revealed; for there was one prosôpon of them both and not one ousia. Therefore have I said that he was one in the prosôpon and one and another in the ousias: the child and the Lord of the child; for 'he who begins and gradually advances and is brought to fullness is not God, although on account of his manifestation which [took place] little by |231 little / he is so called'. Gregory also, explaining that God is predicated in them both, who is in one prosôpon, lest we should suppose that there is one nature, says: 'He who begins and gradually advances and is brought to fullness is not God, although on account of the manifestation which [took place little] by little he is so called.'
Theophilus also says: 'This master-craftsman, the Word of God, living and making everything, who has disposed everything in fitting order, put not on a body of an honourable nature and of heavenly attributes and came unto us, but he showed in the clay the greatness of his craftsmanship in reshaping man who was formed from the clay,' 94 He hid not that he was made and that he was also the Maker. He has not made the Maker the made and the Lord the servant in the same ousia, as thou arguest with us. For the earthly and the heavenly, the visible and the invisible, the limited and the illimitable, are the same, as Gregory has said: 'The child and the Lord of the child are the same, yet the same not in the same [ousia], but in the prosôpon; but the child and the Lord of the child are in the natures one thing and another, [even] those of whom is Christ; but [he is not] one and another----far from it!' What then makest thou of the things of the prosôpon of the ousia and of the nature? Thou dost transport the ousia of God / into two ousias and then removest our own nature and the firstfruits which [are] of us in attributing neither to the child nor to the Lord of the child diversity of natures but saying that the ousia of the child and the ousia of the Maker of the child exist in the same ousia of God the Word, as if [it was] he who made his own ousia and God the Word was the two ousias [issuing] from the one ousia of God the Word, or as if the ousia of man was changed into the |232 ousia of God the Word. For if thou shrinkest from speaking thus, why censurest thou one who speaks clearly and accountest him impious and accusest him of impiety?
Wherefore then, O judges, you who have been [involved] in folly and in deception and in violence, have you not examined the testimony which has been written by the Fathers? You would have proved to him 95 indeed from his own [statements] that he indeed confesses two natures, one and another, of one and another ousia, as the holy Fathers have said. And thou also sayest that 'the natures are diverse, but that Christ [is] one of them both, [yet] not as though the union made void the diversities of the natures'. These things it appears that thou hast said; and 'The child and the dweller in the child', which thou hast said, is also the same. I say that he was impassible in a passible body, that he has a rational soul inasmuch as he is a child, for he is man as well as child. How therefore, in saying these things and persuading / us to agree with the truth of the faith, condemnest thou this man 96 on these same [points]? Is not the injustice evident? Thou callest the natures diverse in Christ, and this man makes the same confession and accepts thy statement of these things; and [thou sayest] that there is one prosôpon in the diverse natures, while he too confesses this and accepts thy confession concerning these things. And thou speakest of property and appropriation in consequence of the union, and admittest that that which exists is one thing and that which is called another, while this man also speaks of property and appropriation without his 97 having come into being by [passing] from [his] appropriate and voluntary property into a nature that was without volition, that he might suffer the natural sufferings. But thou gatherest together the things which have been said, so that indeed there is neither he who made them his properties, nor those things which have become his own, but there is one, not [one] prosôpon but [one] ousia indeed, so that thou makest void all those things that we have confessed together.
If thou callest this correct and not different from the truth, |233 you ought not to have maligned either the [doctrine] of one prosôpon or again that of two natures. For naught have you condemned me, not that I do not confess one prosôpon in having said 'The child and he that dwells in the child are the same'; for 'is the same' indicates one and the same prosôpon; nor is it as though I confess not two natures, for 'he who dwells' indicates / the nature, as though it was in the child as in the bodily frame, that the ousia of God might not be supposed to be the same as the ousia of the child. If then neither thou preachest this, nor this man who has written these things, thou oughtest not to have accused me and calumniated me as not confessing one prosôpon in two ousias or as defining them individually 98 in distinction and in division, as things which are distant from one another. For I have called the 'dweller' one who by all means dwells in the nature; and the dweller is he who dwells in him in whom there is dwelling, and he has a prosôpon, while he in whom there is dwelling has the prosôpon of him who dwells. So by the use of their prosôpa as though they were making use of their own authoritatively, the one is the other and the other the one, the one and the other abiding just as they are in their natures. He is truly God, we confess truly that he [is so] also in his nature and is complete, in naught falling short of the nature of the Father; and we confess that the man is truly man, completely in his nature, in naught falling short of the nature of men, neither in body nor in soul nor in intelligence; all these things he has in our likeness, apart from sin. He was not without activity in his own nature; for although God makes use of these things in his own prosôpon, he makes use of them as of things appertaining unto man, in such wise also / as the humanity makes use of the divinity in the things appertaining to divinity; for they have a union in prosôpon and not in ousia.
For this reason it is right to lay down and to confess that, as he is confessed [to be] the archetype by reason of the image, since it is therefrom that he is called that which he is, so also, when God the Word is called flesh, he is confessed |234 [to be] flesh, that from it he is called flesh and the flesh is God and Lord and Son of God, that from it it is said that the Lord is in these things, that he may be conceived without either confusion or change or phantasy in respect to the divinity and in respect to the humanity. But if a man changes the things appertaining to the image and predicates them of the archetype, necessarily is he acting foolishly in regard to both of them, both in regard to the divinity and in regard to the humanity: in regard to the humanity in assigning unto it the nature of the divinity, and in regard to the divinity because he attributes the things appertaining to the divinity to the nature of the humanity and changes them both. But these things indeed would have been so when they were to be examined by the judges, if there had been judges and they had consulted the [interests] of the orthodox without inclining to the side of the heretics and had not let them be brought to pass against the rules. But you would not have been the judges, yea, I would add that [you would have been] not even orthodox, if you had not also obscured these things. And what shall I say? All of you have one and the same opinion; but read too what follows.
/ Likewise from the same, from the first roll. Common indeed is the activity of the holy Trinity, and they are distinct only in the prosopa; for the majesty of the glory of the only-begotten applies sometimes to the Father, for It is my Father that glorifieth me, and sometimes to the Holy Spirit: The Spirit of truth will glorify me, and sometimes to the might of Christ.
What, pray, is there finally in me to rouse them? [Is it] because I have said: 'The activity of the Trinity is common and the division lies only in the hypostases.' Or perhaps it |235 is yours to suppose that I have said unto you otherwise concerning the Trinity that the Son is glorified by the Father and by the Holy Spirit. Not that he suffices not for his own glory, but I have formerly borne witness abundantly and for this reason I have laid down 'sometimes indeed by the might of God' as being sufficient unto his own glory and not in need, because he is not in need. Who then has deceived you? But perhaps you conceive that I am speaking of the humanity which has been glorified by the Father and by the Holy Spirit and by God the Word himself.
You fight hard, and you are unwilling to name aught of the dispensation. And suppose that it has been so said by me; for I disclaim not that on behalf of which you are fighting, but now I establish my theme openly. For naught / else is your fighting by all [means] against me than this: you confess not that the flesh of the Incarnation is created and [that] the second Adam is of our own nature and that he is created. You concede not that he is the creature of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and that further he is glorified by the Creator. Why doubtest thou? What do we make this man? Either you do not confess that the flesh is made, or you confess that the flesh is made but is not of an ousia other than [that] of God the Word? So, in order that he may not be the creature of the Father or of the Holy Spirit, you make him the creator of himself. For you are very cautious therein, and you make him the maker of himself and say that he is made of none other than himself. All this is fair and just in your opinion when it is so said; wherefore do you not say clearly whatever you suppose to be true? But [this] in name indeed you shun but revert to it in fact, and refer to the nature of God the Word naturally the attributes of natural flesh. That two natures should be united in one prosôpon makes not two Sons or two Christs, the diversities of each one of the natures being preserved.
/ Thou knowest him who by all means somewhere has said these things. Thou hast in fact said that the diversities subsist and are not made void by reason of the union of the |236 natures of the divinity and of the humanity. Say one prosôpon in two natures and two natures in one prosôpon, as Gregory and as Ambrose and as Athanasius, as all the Fathers, as thou too hast said, that we may not [again] write the same things. If you had been just judges, he would not have been confident. But he would have made you all participate in impiety, that you too might shun equity of judgement, because you were afraid of reprimand for that which you have wrought against me. Are you willing that we should examine the other things too which they have written? Let it not be tedious unto you to hear the same thing many times; but you shall compulsorily, of necessity, attend to the things which are to be said.
Likewise from the same, from the sixteenth roll, speaking of the Son. He it is who said: My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? He it is who endured death three days, and him I adore with the divinity. 'And after three days': on account of him who is clothed I adore the clothing, on account of him who is concealed [I adore] him who is revealed, who is not distinguished from the visible. For this reason I distinguish not the honour of him who is not distinguished; / I distinguish the natures and I unite the adoration. It was not God by himself who was formed in the womb nor again was God created by himself apart from the Holy Spirit nor yet was God entombed by himself in the tomb; for, if it had been so, we should evidently be worshippers of a man and worshippers of the dead. But since God is in him who has been taken, he also who has been taken is called God with him after him who has taken [him].
Readers ought not to break off, as if they had no more any need of reminding, but to be willing to go through in the book of their words those which they have set down close |237 at hand in opposition to me, that 'the bodily frame exists not by itself. This [it is] concerning which they have unjustly belied me, as though I were speaking of a mere man and distinguishing him into part[s], as those things which are distinguished from one another in space. And again contrariwise to this they accuse me, [demanding] from what reason I call him indistinguishable and infinite, since they hear 'he came into being by himself, not even for one moment, but God too is in him ever since his coming into being, since also God is in him that he may come to be in him'. 'For he is impassible in a passible body who in the fullness of the times assumed the man that he who assumed might come to be indistinguishably in him who was assumed.' And it was not artificially that he came to be in the body, but truly he came to be in the body and was / not distinguished from the body. 'The nature which [was born] of Mary was human and our salvation came not to pass in phantasy.'
From the things which they say, you also know my [words]: 'And he who has been assumed is named God after him who assumed.' This was not his of his own nature; for he who has been assumed is the passible man in whom the impassible existed, [that is] the human nature in which God existed not artificially,2 the clay wherein the cunning craftsman has proved his craftsmanship. By the union with the divinity it is his to become Son and to become God. For 'he who begins and gradually advances and is perfected is not God, although on account of the manifestation which [took place] little by little he is so called', and he is called that whereunto God is united in nature. For 'one thing and another are those things whereof our Saviour is [formed], yet [he is] not one and another----far from it!----but one by adhesion, God on the one hand who was made man and man on the other who was made God'. By his adhesion he was made God and not by his nature; by the union of the divinity and of the flesh he became one Son, for both the natures existed in him. Therefore 'The man is called God by the union of the |238 divinity and is said to be one Son'----[he is said] to become one son----by this doctrine he is adored with the adoration of the divinity and is adored with him; yet there are not two adorations, but one. For in the / one adoration of this one ousia the other also is adored, because he who is adored with the other is not adored in his own adoration, but both of them together. In the adoration indeed of the one, the other who is with him, who is adored in the adoration, also [is adored]; of necessity he is united and not distinguished. For also he who is adored is not capable of not being adored, nor again [is he] to be adored apart from him in whom he exists, nor yet again [is he] to be adored in him without the latter also, in whom he receives adoration, being adored. For he is not adored in his own prosôpon but in that prosôpon to which he is united, which is common on account of the union for the union took place in the prosôpon in such wise that the one [became] the other and the other the one. From him therefore who assumed the prosôpon it is his who has been assumed to become the prosôpon of him who has assumed it. For this reason the flesh of God the Word bears the same title with him, and it is not according to the flesh that God the Word becomes God and Son and Lord; for God the Word is called God and Son in his nature and not after another in the things derived from the nature. But the flesh has received from God to be named that which he is called, being called God when bearing the same title with him, making use with him of the name of God; it is not its after its nature. Otherwise then thou art dividing the union and predicating two things of him.99
And censure one who says that the body is by itself and according to whom the [properties] of the divinity belong not to the divinity which [is] in the body. / And before everything censure 100 thyself who hast so spoken; and if indeed thou darest not to deny that owing to the union the flesh had the prosôpon of the divinity, but referrest to God the Word alone the [attributes] of the humanity and of the |239 divinity but to the humanity neither those of the humanity nor those of the divinity, thou yet dissemblest in that thou namest God the Word in them both; thou art like unto me in being [too] reverent to suppose that the humanity is not worthy of the prosôpon, and thou overthrowest the union which thou confessest in schema, where[by] two natures are one prosôpon, laying down that it is God the Word who is united to the flesh or to the man and that he is said [to be] in both of them in the nature of God and [to be] man in the union, but a man who is neither united to the divinity nor even exists.101 And for this reason man is named Son neither after his nature nor through the union of God the Word. But thus thou seemest to set up God the Word in both of them but man [in] neither of the two of them, whether in the nature or in the union with that |240 which is united. 'God on the one hand who was made man, man on the other who was made God.' 'For he who begins and gradually advances and is brought to fullness is not God, although on account of the manifestation which [took place] little by little he is so called.'
And all the things which are called after the union in respect to both of those / things which are united come to be with reference to the one prosôpon. And thou sayest that the union of the natures took place in one prosôpon, but in fact with all thy might thou settest up the Incarnation of God the Word of the Arians and of the Apollinarians, and thou provest to those who have eyes to search thee out that he made use of the body and of the soul as of an instrument without soul and without reason and without will as if for his own nature, doing and suffering the sufferings of the body which became consubstantial. And for this reason thou countest it not with him and thou referrest to God the Word, even as to a craftsman, all these [properties] of the instrument, but thou dost attribute to the instrument those of the craftsman, since he was not assumed for this, that he might do and suffer voluntarily in his nature, but that God the Word might suffer all human things and do them, while he had not his own will or feeling or sufferings or humanity; but thou dost attribute unto God the Word feeling and willing and suffering in all the things of humanity in his nature. And for this reason thou declinest to say that there was aught [added] to the humanity itself owing to the union with the divinity, apart from what God the Word is in prosôpon, that is, God and Lord and Son of God; for except the ousia he 102 has all the [properties] of the ousia owing to the union and not by nature. For the divinity makes use of the prosôpon of the humanity and the humanity of that of the divinity; and thus we say one / prosôpon in both of them. Thus God appears whole, since his nature is not damaged in aught owing to the union; and thus too man [is] whole, falling short of naught of the activity and of the sufferings of his own nature |241 owing to the union. For he who refers to the one prosôpon of God the Word the [properties] of God the Word and those of the humanity and gives not in return the prosôpon of God the Word to the humanity steals away the union of the orthodox and likens it to that of the heretics. For you have learnt of the orthodox in the testimonies which they have written, that they give in compensation the [properties] of the humanity to the divinity and those of the divinity to the humanity, and that this is said of the one and that of the other, as concerning natures whole and united, united indeed without confusion and making use of the prosôpa of one another.103
How therefore has he swept you away to everything that he wishes, O wise judges? Either then refute the [sayings] of the Fathers which you have cited in testimony, or else otherwise it is of necessity [incumbent] upon you to receive one who says on their own side according to their teaching: 'Two indeed in nature and one prosôpon in the union, in mixture, in revelation, in adhesion, God who was made man, man who was made God, the one is said after the other to have been made man and the other said after the one to have been made God.' Whatever therefore have I said which is alien from them, for which you have condemned me? Was it not right to confess two natures? Was it not right to confess one prosôpon belonging to two natures, / of the divinity and of the humanity, that of the divinity and of the humanity? But although you deny that which you have written you are to be reprimanded.
Read therefore what follows:
Likewise from the same, from the third roll: against heretics, concerning the Holy Spirit. For how is that a |242 servant who [works with the Son and the Father? And, if any one inquires concerning the Spirit what are his acts, he will find that he] 104 is with the Father and with the Son, and falls not short of them in aught. It is not indeed as though one divinity were divided, but the Divine Scripture, for the proof and the likeness of the Trinity proves that [there is] one power and that it is distinguished for each single one of the hypostases. And search out likewise from the works which at sundry times have begun [as follows]: God the Word became flesh and dwelled among us and caused the humanity which was taken to abide with the Father. The Lord said unto my Lord: Sit thou on my right hand, to that likeness which was taken, the Holy Spirit has come down and shown his glory.
The reader therefore has not need that we should go back to each one of the things which have been said before, and that we should say the same things. But we will say unto them: Is the flesh created or not created? Speak clearly; if thou sayest that it is created, in whatever manner it be, thou concedest that it has been made by the Father and by the Son and by the Holy Spirit, for they are entirely distinct in nothing in the making and all things are wrought by one and the same / will and wisdom. But if thou distinguishest not between these and separatest [not] the Son from the Father and from the Holy Spirit, but even [sayest] that he has become flesh in virtue of the flesh and has dwelled among us and that all the dispensation on our behalf has been effected by one and the same will and wisdom and |243 might even as also it has been effected, I myself also and all the company of the orthodox say [the same], according to the Holy Scriptures. If therefore this is worthy of accusation, let care be taken by thee that naught is left without accusation. And yet sayest thou that it is created? Say it clearly and suppress the [doctrine] that God the Word became flesh; for if he became not, how is it said that he became? For thus he is not admitted [to be] as an act, the work of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. For thereby it appears that thou art constrained to say that the flesh of God the Word has need of the Father and the Holy Spirit, the [flesh] which in its own ousia is naught else than God the Word. But it is not God the Word, who has not need of the Father and of the Holy Spirit.
If thou conceivest the flesh thus, thou well definest it to be so. Look well however in the Fathers who imagine the opposite concerning the flesh, from whom you have cited testimony, when they say: 'It is indeed the human nature which [is] of Mary,' and again: / 'He who begins and gradually advances and is brought to fullness is not God, although on account of the manifestation which [took place] little by little he is so called.' For both natures of which our Saviour is [formed] are one thing and another, even as thou hast formerly agreed with them to say the same things: 'Diverse are the natures which have been combined in the union, but of both of them [there issues] one Christ, not indeed that the diversity of the natures is to be made void on account of the union; for God is impassible in a passible body; for his body, which also is abiding with him, with the Father, is not alien unto him.' What then is there to do with the things that I have said, which confirm the [words] of the former and those of the latter? And they make void thine, while thou settest aside all those whom thou hast cited as thy testimony. For these reasons the judges have not come to the examination, lest they should |244 hear these and such like things and be condemning themselves. But I will cite again the rest of the things which are like unto them and we will run over them, that you may see through all of them the cause of his declining the judgement.
Likewise from the same, from the sixth roll: in speaking of Christ. He has been sent forth to preach release to the captives as the Apostle [says], and cites: 'He [it was] who was trusted of God and was made chief priest;' for he surely became and existed not eternally from aforetime. He it is who gradually advances little by little to the honour of the high / priesthood, O heretic! Hear the voice which clearly proclaims unto thee: In the days of the flesh he offered up a prayer and a supplication with strong crying and with tears and was heard for his righteousness and, though he was rightly Son, learned obedience by the things which he bore and was made perfect and became unto all them that obey him the cause of eternal life. Being surely brought to fullness and made perfect he gradually advanced little by little, [O] heretic; concerning whom also Luke proclaims in the Gospel that Jesus increased in stature and in wisdom. Paul also has said things agreeing therewith: He was made perfect and became unto all them that obey him the cause of eternal life and was named of God chief priest after the order of Melchizedek, and, after other things, he was proclaimed chief priest. Why therefore dost thou interpret against Paul, thou that dost mingle God the Word impassible with an earthly likeness and makest him a passible chief priest? |245
I imagine therefore that all of you, since you constantly say these things and since the latter brings them forward in his testimony, are like those who make mock of them that are heavy with sleep and answer differently to different things to those who cry out and ask them. For this reason, when thou settest aside thine own testimonies, thou dost not understand. For thy witness Gregory says: 'He who begins and gradually advances and is brought to fullness is not God, although on account of the manifestation which [took place] gradually / he is so called.' But then he is not thy witness but my advocate, who has laid down these things in his discourses. Why then dost thou mingle these [arguments] of one who has laid them down in his very discourses? But Ambrose too [says]: 'Does not the Scripture also teach you that the divinity has not need of sanctification, but the flesh? Confess the glory of God and the sufferings of man.' [Thou claimest] that he is on thy side, but knowest not what thou sayest. Whatever then has this man 105 said unto thee other [than this]? For he who accepts these disputes not against those. If thou accusest the latter as one who predicates the two ousias, accuse also the former who predicates two natures, one thing and another.
But thou sayest that he who confesses two natures, one and another, of necessity makes two prosôpa; for it is not possible that two prosôpa should become one prosôpon; but, if it is right to confess one prosôpon, refer them all to the one prosôpon of God the Word, in order that they may be predicated of one prosôpon and not of two; just as thou sayest that he [it is] who suffered, and dividest [it] on thy two fingers and makest proof as if concerning things [that are] divided. In this indeed thou hast naught [to do] with me, O admirable man. He, who in word accepts the Fathers and the words of the Fathers, accepts also my words at the same time. He, who says: 'Does not / the Scripture itself |246 also teach you that the divinity has not need of sanctification, but the flesh?' predicates one prosôpon of the flesh and of the divinity, and that the one has need of sanctification, while the other has not need. And 'He who begins and gradually advances and is brought to fullness is not God, although on account of his manifestation which [took place] little by little he is so called'----and the latter too predicates two: he who has begun and he who has not begun, and he who gradually advances and is brought to fullness, and further he who eternally is such as he is; he who is not God in his nature, although through the manifestation he is called God, and he who is [so] in his nature. For in the natures thou dividest also the prosôpa: man and God. [There are] not two sons nor two men; but hast thou not been informed that the Fathers confess one prosôpon of two natures, and that the diversities of the natures, either of the divinity or of the humanity, have not been made void by reason of the union, because they are thereby combined in one prosôpon which belongs to the natures and to the prosôpa? For the diversities subsist, since there has not been confusion or even suppression, so that thou mightest refer the diversity of the natures naturally to one nature and to one prosôpon of the same nature and mightest suppress that which is without prosôpon and without its own ousia, that is, the humanity, and mightest name God and man God alone.
For he, who thus names the one prosôpon of the two natures / God the Word, further attributes not the [properties] of the divinity to the prosôpon of the humanity in such wise that there should be one prosôpon of the divinity and of the humanity: the prosôpon of the divinity and the prosôpon of the humanity are one prosôpon, the one on this hand by kenosis, the other on that by exaltation. Either thou confessest the confusion of the natures and the absolute suppression [of the humanity], or thou confessest the instrumental and natural union of the heretics, whereby he is united to all the [properties] of men, in order that he may be able to comport himself and to suffer according to human nature. And the [attributes] |247 of the humanity [are] as the instrument to the craftsman; that is, thou referrest them to God the Word and dost not attribute to the instrument, that is, to the humanity, those of the craftsman; and the [properties] of the humanity, as by an instrument, thou referrest to God the Word, but thou dost not attribute those of God the Word to the humanity. Thou therefore deceivest, in that thou makest use of the things which we say in our own name alone and in our own prosôpon, whereas in fact on the contrary thou suppressest them; and thou makest God the Word himself passible, in suppressing the sensibility and the will of the humanity, which [according to thee] 'is not indeed sensible in its nature', but is sensible in the nature of God the Word, nor became willing in its own nature but became willing in the nature of God the Word. And for this purpose, as regards the humanity, thou attributest the things of the humanity to the nature and not to the prosôpon.106 But thou attributest the things of the humanity unto God but dost not attribute those of the divinity to the humanity. But we / speak of one and another in natures but of one prosôpon in the union for the use of one another: God on the one hand who was made man, man on the other who was made God.
But further, as in the Trinity, [there is] there one ousia of three prosôpa, but three prosôpa of one ousia; here [there is] one prosôpon of two ousias and two ousias of one prosôpon. There the prosôpa exist not without ousia, nor here again does the ousia exist without a prosôpon, nor also the nature without prosôpon, nor yet the prosôpon without nature. For of the prosôpon of the one ousia and not of another the other ousia makes use in the same manner on account of the union. It has indeed made our own [properties] its very own properties, conceding its own to him to whom all these things belong completely, except sin. For he has come to aid our nature, not to take that which belongs to him, and to save and renew in him[self] our nature through a sublime obedience, and not to remove it from obedience, being obedient in its stead to all human sufferings, while it is obedient in naught, |248 and not to participate in the human nature of men. Nor [according to Cyril] did he come into being of men nor again of the [things] of divinity, but he attributes to the divinity the [properties] of the humanity without attributing those of the divinity to the humanity; but he was taken as something to serve as an instrument, not having voluntarily practised obedience as / a rational nature, with thought and with examination and with the choice of good and with the refusal of evil.
But if thou callest the nature of men in him whole, attribute unto him completeness also in the operations wherein it seems that it exists, that is, that he trusted in God and was made chief priest. And he offered up prayer and supplication and entreaty unto him that was able to preserve him alive from death and rescue him with strong crying and with tears and was heard on account of his righteousness; and though he were a son, he learned obedience by the things which he had borne and became the cause of eternal life unto all them that obey him; and again 'he who begins and gradually advances and is brought to fullness is not God, although on account of his revelation which [was made] little by little he is so called'; and again: 'Does not the Scripture also teach you that the divinity has not need of sanctification, but the flesh?' Although he was a son, by reason indeed of the union of the divinity and of the flesh, the Son of God speaks in them both because both the natures exist in him: 'Now indeed the glory of God and now the sufferings of the man.' For in saying 'God' and in saying 'in nature', we conceive him not without the man; and so again in calling him 'man' and in speaking of him as 'in nature', we speak not of him apart from his being God, but / we name the man God indeed on account of the union of the divinity but man in nature; yet similarly once more also God the Word is God indeed in nature, but we call God man by reason of the union of the prosôpon of the humanity. The [properties] therefore of the natures change not the union nor those of the union the natures and deprive [not] both |249 of them of the properties of the natures or of those which are caused by the union in the dispensation on our behalf.
But let other things also be written for the confutation of the condemnation which the judges have pronounced against me.
Likewise from the same, from the seventh roll. Wherefore, holy brethren who have been called by a heavenly calling, behold this Apostle and chief priest of our confession Jesus Christ, who [was] faithful unto him that hath made him as [was] Moses in all his house. And after other things: Since you have this chief priest who suffers with you and [is] your kinsman and sustains your people, fall not away from the faith; for he, by means of the blessing which was promised unto him, was sent of the seed of Abraham in order that he might present himself as a sacrifice on his behalf and on behalf of his kinsmen. It is to be remarked that I have confessed, that they all had need of sacrifices, and that I have excepted Christ as one who has not need; but he offered himself as a sacrifice on his own behalf and on behalf of his race.
Who then [is he] that is faithful / unto him that made him chief priest? Make answer. God the Word? For of him it says that he was made chief priest unto him who made him. Who is he that made him chief priest? [Was it] he who was faithful unto him, or did he make himself or [was he made it] by the Father? But if he made himself chief priest, if thou sayest that that [took place] in the union in the same manner as the Word also became flesh, thou art constrained to give a nature of our own ousia unto the flesh, after which he also is called flesh in the union and not in the nature. He is truly chief priest, he who is consubstantial with us and our kinsman, on account of whom God the Word also is called chief priest. |250
For there is none that says that the one was of the other and denies that the other was of the one. Confess therefore in the first place this one who exists in the nature and next [him] who is said [to exist] through the union; for if this is not confirmed, there is not even place for it.
For each one of the names of an ousia indicates concerning him in the first place the ousia whose name it is. Bring it before the hearer, and then afterwards thou comest to the fact that they are said otherwise also and not in ousia. Consequently also when in that which is said men take first a name which is [used] of a nature, and afterwards of things which [are said] otherwise, however it may be, they are named either in the manner of homonymy or even not by nature; for this reason they cover them over as things concealed and forgotten. When therefore we speak of the things of the union, / thou sayest 'and is made man', but thou assignest this not to the union but as to the nature. But thou dissemblest the things appertaining to the nature and thou hinderest those who speak [them] as persons committing impiety. Thou allowest naught else than to take the [words] 'he became' and 'he was made' of the nature of God, although ten thousand times thou sayest [that he is] unchangeable; and thou confessest that he who made was made and exists in his nature and is called what he became; or speakest thou on the contrary in phantasy [words] which confess two natures of which Christ is [formed] and diverse natures which are diverse natures? How can men speak otherwise of the natures, unless they make use of the name of the natures, of the one and of the other?
But this [is] weighty. For this reason also I have said that it is to be remarked: he indeed has been sent unto us of the seed of Abraham through the blessing which was promised, that he might offer his body as a sacrifice on his behalf and on behalf of his kinsmen. Remark indeed that I have confessed, that all the chief priests have need of sacrifices, while Christ, as one who had no need thereof, offered himself as a sacrifice on his own behalf and on behalf of his race. Suppose that it has been so said by me; for I decline not to refute the change in your words, lest it should be supposed that, after I |251
have been refuted, I have set myself to accuse [you] because of [your] inadequacy. For even in these things God has not left me without / excuse for my thought, which is clear unto all men. For I have said that all the chief priests have need of sacrifices for their sins, except Christ; whereas I have said that Christ has offered the sacrifice of himself for himself and for his race, for his race, indeed, that he may release them from the condemnation of the signed bond of sin. While he was free from sin, [he] yet [offered himself] for himself that there might be given unto him a name which [is] more excellent than all names, and he was obedient unto death, and accepted death upon the cross, he who was free from sin. For he who was not found with sin and was obedient that he might die for us, received a name which is more excellent than all names, which was his since the beginning, from birth, since he was a little child. And although he was indeed Son and there was neither more nor less in him in authority in his sonship, yet was he made perfect that he might become a Son with authority; similarly the humanity, which from birth had to become the Son through the union and which had not authority but obedience, yet through obedience was perfected in authority and received a name which [is] more excellent than all names. Therefore he was neither passible nor yet mortal but both in authority and in honour. He was / in them all; apart from the ousia he had all the [properties] of the ousia; he is one Son who exists in the union.
And every chief priest has need of sacrifices for his sins, but Christ had not need [thereof] for his sins but for his race, that he might release them from sin. But this was also so for his own sake; because of his unlimited obedience [it was] that he died for sinners. Both in his will and in his thought he acquired, in short, naught else than to wish and to will whatsoever God willed in him. For this reason God also was in him whatsoever he was himself, in such wise that he also became in God whatsoever God was in him for the forming of his coming into being in his likeness, [to wit] the prosôpon of God; and whatsoever the humanity became |252 by the obedience which it observed was not for his prosôpon therein, but for the prosôpon of God in God. This prosôpon will be his and [he will be] also God, in such wise that, wherein he is one, having acquired no distinction in the prosôpon, [it is] necessary to give unto him a distinction of the complete natures. But in the prosôpa of the union, the one in the other, neither by diminution nor by suppression nor by confusion is this 'one' conceived, but by taking and by giving,107 and by the use of the union of the one with the other, the prosôpa take and give one another but not the ousias. The one we conceive as the other and the other as the one, while the one and the other abide. For when God the Word is called God and man, there are not two prosôpa of God the Word / because the two of them are not said [to be] in ousia, but the one is said [to be] in ousia and the other in the union, and in the use of the one with the other which came about through both the natures. But he is predicated in them both, in the one and in the other: in the one indeed by ousia and in the other by union. And so also, when by reason of the very union we concede to the humanity the being said [to be] in both of them, in the ousia and in the union, we make not of necessity two prosôpa of the union, in that there is [only] one belonging to both the natures, belonging to the divinity and to the humanity as to the humanity and the divinity. In saying 'God indeed who was made man', he 108 has not however left out the compensation, as thou conceivest this in the union, since the union with the humanity is congruous with God the Word, in such wise that he is called God in both of them. Nor again [is] the man also man and God; thou takest away the compensation from the union of the two ousias. For this reason he goes back on his word and [adds] 'the man who was made God' as depending on the union which makes the prosôpa and not the natures common.
And hear also from the same2:----' He who begins and gradually advances and is brought to fullness is not God, |253 although on account of the manifestation which [took place] little by little he is so called.' Because he is called God through the manifestation, he is not to be conceived as man without prosôpon and without nature; because he is man in nature, he is for this reason God in the manifestation, in order that it may not be supposed / that he is called God for the suppression of the natures and of their properties owing to the union, or that the union of God took place only with a view to the man. Wherefore whatsoever God is by nature is said also by [reason of] the union in whatever is united, that is, man. For the man, who, as not united, was not what he is by nature, [namely] man, is called God through that which is united.109
For all these things make thy protests absurd; if indeed it be that another man says that he was man who began and therefore was not God, although by reason of the union he is so called, he is not foolish; for it is the other who begins and gradually advances and is brought to fullness, and not God, and he offends your hearing in naught. But if I say that the other is he who gradually advanced and was perfected for the chief priesthood, thou rebukest me as though I were introducing another prosôpon; there is, however, no distinction between a man's saying 'the man who begins' and his saying he who begins', for all these indicate the same thing, that is, the man. 'Speak of the glory of God and the sufferings of man': 'Does not the Scripture also teach you that the divinity has not need of sanctification, but the flesh?' Why dissemblest thou these things as one who is ashamed of them and makest the sufferings of him who suffered for our sakes those of the impassible, in such wise that the debt on behalf of our salvation was paid and settled without sufferings, since / he took nothing? But thou hast done all things in |254 schema and in fiction and agreest neither with thyself nor with the Fathers. For you are not fighting against me, but through me you are fighting against these. Further, among the things whereof you accuse me, let us hear these things also:
Likewise from the same from the fourth roll. Hear then, you who are inquiring into the words: He that eateth my body. Recollect that he speaks of the body, and [that] I have not added the term 'body', in order that it may not be thought by them that I am interpreting it contrariwise: He that eateth my body and drinketh my blood abideth in me and I in him. And, after other things: But on the present subject he has said: He that eateth my body and drinketh my blood abideth in me and I in him. Recollect that he says of the body something which he says: as the living Father hath sent me. The former then has said these things of the divinity, but I of the humanity; let us therefore see who it is that interprets [them] contrariwise. As the living Father hath sent me, as they say, I then too am living, I the Word by reason of the Father. And now after this [it is written]: So he that eateth me, even he shall live. Whom do we eat? The divinity or the flesh?
Therefore, although they are willing to say that I have not interpreted contrary to the divine / scriptures, they are to be reprimanded by all men. However, since I have asked, you have considered my request impious: [was it] then that I ought not to have said whatever divine scripture says, that 'the flesh was eaten '? But divine Scripture has said simply flesh, whereas you have condemned me, since by 'flesh' I |255 conceive the flesh and not the divinity, as though I [were] one that makes distinctions, conceiving the one as flesh and the other as divinity. I distinguish not the union of the natures but the natures which are united in reference to the ousias, even as being without confusion of the one with the other. I have said the flesh and the divinity. Suppose that I was not speaking with precision; I condemn my lack of instruction and my own impiety. Only wait for me, that you may say this clearly: that the flesh and the divinity are one and the same in ousia as well as in prosôpon; 110 and we denounce all those who think otherwise than this as impious. If you do not say this clearly, for what reason have you condemned me before God?
But some one will perhaps say: Wherefore art thou downcast? They have confessed the death of God and have condemned thee also to death. Whatever else hast thou thought in opposition to those who stand up for these things, and do not permit men not to attach death unto God and in fact defy those who confess [it] not? I know then that they have been / doing this for a long while, but now I am addressing this my discourse to those who in truth seek to be instructed lest they be deceived by the name 'Council' [and believe] that I have been condemned by the judgement of the Fathers and by the testimonies which they have cited. From all this I shall prove that there was no judgement, because they made no examination, neither amongst themselves nor with the others, nor have they been content even in schema to divest themselves of the depth of their impiety. 111
'For the flesh of our Lord is one thing in ousia and the divinity is another,' says Gregory; for the things whereof our Saviour [was formed] are one thing and another, the visible and the invisible are not the same and 'he who begins and gradually advances and is perfected is not God, although by reason of the manifestation which [took place] 'little by little he is so called '; and 'not artificially was he |256 in the body': and 'human was the body which [was] born of Mary', and the flesh [was] of the holy Mary. Athanasius said this: 'he took from the virgin a body in the likeness of the latter.' 'For he took not a body of an hyle precious and heavenly and came among us, but of clay, to show the greatness of his craftsmanship, in order that he might re-shape the very man who was formed of clay,' as Theophilus has said.
But Ambrose speaks of the union of the divinity and of the flesh: 'The Son of God speaks in both of them, since in him were / the two natures. He is the living bread which came down from heaven; this bread is the body, the body whereof he himself has said: This bread that I will give unto you is my body. He [it was] that came down, He [it is] that the Father has sanctified and has sent into the world. Does not Scripture also teach you that the divinity has not need of sanctification, but the flesh?'
Did I alone say this? Why have I need of other witnesses for protesting that the flesh is not in the same [manner] God the Word? or that it is [not] for it to become what God the Word is, or that it is [not] God the Word's to become flesh, although the other is predicated in the union? If you yourselves are not persuaded and believe not all these things and defy all men, what have you [to do] with me [and] with all of these? Let him who injures me injure me and him who persecutes me persecute me and him who kills me kill me; and we consider it a great favour to be deemed worthy to endure the scars of Christ on our body. If [it is] pleasing unto you to hear, hear also other things and judge if they are worthy of the judgement [which has been passed] and if these things are not [the work] of men who look askance at heaven and contend against God.
/ Likewise from the same, from the sixteenth roll. If thou examinest well all the New [Testament], thou canst not anywhere find that death is imputed unto God but either unto Christ or unto the Son or unto the Lord. For the name of Christ or of Son or of Lord, which is taken |257 for the only-begotten from the divine Scriptures, is indicative of two natures and indicates sometimes the divinity, but sometimes the humanity and sometimes both of them. When Paul, who was sent forth to preach, says We were enemies, but God has been reconciled with us through the death of His Son, he proclaims the humanity by the name of the Son. When the same [Apostle] says unto the Hebrews God hath spoken by his Son, by whom He made the worlds, he indicates the divinity; for the flesh was not the creator of the worlds, the [flesh] which has been made after many worlds. And, after other things: Nor indeed was James the brother of the divinity, nor do we preach the death of God the Word----eating the Lord's body.
Can it be believed that there is in these things [a ground of] accusation wherewith I should be accused and [for] which I should suffer what I have suffered? Because I have said that not God the Word, whose nature is immortal, died but the flesh, for this reason have I been accused? I suppose that not even the demons and they that [are] in enmity with God, have dared to say or have taught this with their voices. Or is it not because of / those who fear not God and respect not men that I have said 'If thou examinest all the New [Testament] together, thou wilt find no place where death is imputed unto God the Word, but either unto Christ or unto the Lord or unto the Son; for the name of Christ or of the Lord or of the Son, which is taken for the only-begotten from the Scriptures is indicative of two natures'. Have I lied? Thou hast the Divine Scriptures: read [them]. |258
What urgent need is there that we should speak cursorily? He has said: 'God the Word has suffered'; or else: 'Christ is not God and man of two natures and two natures.' Read. Either thou sayest [that] God the Word [is] in ousia in the two natures, of two natures and two natures, and, concerning the one ousia of God the Word, [that] it has been divided into two ousias, in such wise that, whatever is the nature of which we say that it has suffered, we attribute unto God the Word having suffered in nature in both of them; or both natures, distinct from one another, have been combined in the one ousia of God the Word, so that, of whichever we say that it has suffered, we say that it is one ousia and the same, which has been combined, that has suffered; or the ousia of the humanity has only been taken for use, that he might see and suffer, nor was it that they might make use one of the other at the same time, and to this reason the latter has contributed naught with the former to the dispensation on our behalf. And he made use thereof according to his own will / as though [it were] without feeling and without reason and without soul, without gaining aught, as the Arians say. For he who receives these things is not constrained to refer them to the prosôpon of him who endured these things, because he made not use of it in order that it might aid him, but that he might be able to suffer and fulfil all human things naturally, without that wherein he suffered or whereby he suffered being reckoned with him who suffered. Say clearly whatever thou dost wish; only [say it] clearly. Why censurest thou me as an impious person, because I have said 'If thou examinest all the New [Testament], thou wilt not find therein that death is imputed unto God the Word, but unto Christ or unto the Son or unto the Lord. For the name of Christ or of Son or of Lord, which is taken for the only-begotten in the Divine Scriptures is indicative of two natures and indicates sometimes the divinity and sometimes the humanity and 'sometimes both of them '? These things I have said, concerning them I am judged, and you are the judges of the things which are said. Speak thou!
For I ought to depose these things of thine also, as thou |259 too hast deposed against me, and to hide naught; nor indeed shall I show myself like you, who have judged my words without examination and without comparison. I have said this: 'In saying that God has not suffered and that Christ has not suffered, thou then inferrest naught else therefrom than that Christ is not God, while if thou sayest that God the Word suffered, thou confessest that Christ is God.' / So then you ought not to depose the whole section, but [only] as far as to bring forward those things which can make it known that I say these things; but the rest you ought to hide. How so? 'If thou readest all the New [Testament], thou canst not find therein that death is imputed unto God the Word, but either unto Christ or unto the Lord or unto the Son.' For thus far he can extract them and make believe that I confess not Christ [as] God; but the rest of the things which have been deposed by you clearly dispose of this supposition. For 'Christ or Lord or Son, which is taken for the only-begotten in the Divine Scriptures, is yet indicative of two natures, sometimes indeed indicating the divinity, but sometimes the humanity, and sometimes both of them'. For I have not denied that Christ is not God,112 but [I have said] that He is also God and God by nature; since I have said that it indicates two natures, the divinity and the humanity. It is not therefore possible that I should be accused of not confessing Christ [as] God through what I have written.
But perhaps [I am accused] because I have called Christ both man and two natures, of the divinity and of the humanity, one passible and the other impassible, and have not confessed that God the Word suffered in both the natures and in ousta, God the Word who became the ousia of man, [with the result] either that he who died lived as if he existed in schema, and we refer / unto God the Word and not unto the ousia of the man the sufferings, in whatsoever manner it be, and that the |260 humanity contributed naught to the dispensation, or that he is manifested and is able to suffer in the very human nature----for this reason it is not reckoned with the divinity----and we refer all these attributes of the divinity and of the humanity to the divinity, as those of the instrument [are referred] to the craftsman, whereas he attributes not those of the divinity unto those of the humanity, in the same way as also those of the craftsman, without whose will nothing is done, are not attributed unto the instrument. This man's meaning is not evident in the things whereof he accuses me. But the judges sit deaf and speechless, without having examined aught. Again constraint [is laid upon me] to make use of the same testimonies against them in establishing mine own [theories] and in reprimanding those who for this reason have fled from judgement, because they had no defence. But otherwise let him who has extracted my words say in passing that the name of Christ or of Son or of Lord is not indicative of two natures, of the divinity and of the humanity. I say naught else.
Read, O man, what thou hast amongst thy testimonies and contend not with a shadow: 'two natures indeed, God and man, but not two sons; for one thing and another are those things whereof our Saviour [is formed]; yet [he is] not one and another----far from it! / ----but one in the mixture: God who was made man and man who was made God.' 'He who begins and gradually advances and is perfected is not God, although by reason of his manifestation which [took place] little by little he is so called.' Have I written these things? Have I inserted aught in them all? Have you not written them? Wherefore then are you accusing me, as though I have predicated two natures of our Saviour? [He is] one thing indeed in nature in the divinity, but another however in nature in the humanity; the divinity [is] not two natures nor [is it formed] of one thing and another, neither are they by mixture in God the Word, but they are two in nature and in the union [there is] one prosôpon belonging to both of them. Yet again [it is] not as if the prosôpon of the humanity, of God |261 who was made man, were rejected in the Trinity. 'He who begins and gradually advances and is brought to fullness is not God, although by reason of his manifestation which [took place] little by little he is so called.' Neither does he say that God the Word is both of them in ousia, nor does he distinguish the humanity from the divinity in such wise that God the Word should suffer even the sufferings of the flesh and accept them in his nature in his prosôpon; for the flesh is outside, participating not in the [properties] of the divinity in its own prosôpon; but by a compensation consisting in the taking and the giving of their prosôpa he speaks of the union of the divinity and of the humanity. Of God on the one hand he says that he was made man out of humanity by union; / on the other hand he says of the humanity that it was made God from the union with the divinity, whereas it was not that it issued forth from the divinity; for 'he who begins and gradually advances and is brought to fullness is not God, although by reason of the revelation which [took place] little by little he is so called'.
Ambrose too says the same of the union of the divinity and of the flesh: 'the Son of God speaks in both of them, because there were in him both the natures.' Athanasius too says this, that our Lord, and not the divinity, came forth from Mary, and predicates also the two natures, calling indeed that of the divinity one thing and the flesh another, and predicating a union thereof. Therein there are both the natures, not in God the Word but in the Son; not indeed that the Son is one and God the Word another, but the one indeed indicates the union and the other the ousia. For the prosôpon is one thing and the ousia another, even as [it is] in respect to the Father and the Son, [who are] one thing and another indeed in the prosôpon but not one thing and another in the divinity. Further, in respect to the union of the divinity and of the flesh, in the prosôpon of the divinity of God the Word [he is] not one thing and another but the same; yet in the natures of the divinity and of the humanity [he is] one thing and |262 another. And for this reason Divine Scripture speaks lucidly of the prosôpon of the divinity and indicates them both in the prosôpon of the union. But of the ousia of the divinity and in the ousia of God / the Word there are not both of them; for the things which are said of the ousia are conceived in one something in so far as they are predicated only of the ousia.
For this reason Ambrose also speaks of the union of the divinity and spoke not of the union of the Son, although not another but out of the same. But the one indeed is indicative of the prosôpon, while the other is indicative of the nature; and for this reason, in that there has been a union of the ousias, he speaks of the union of the divinity and of the flesh, and, because the union of the natures resulted in one prosôpon, he added that the Son of God speaks in both of them, since in him are both the natures, [and] not God the Word. For God the Word is one and not two. That therefore which is known by the ousia is one thing and that which [is known] by the prosôpon is another, and that which [is known] by the natures is another, and that which indicates the union is another. For this reason I have said that 'Divine Scripture nowhere at all imputes death unto God, but either unto the Son or unto Christ or unto the Lord', in order that none may suppose that the union took place in the ousia and not in the prosôpon. And the prosôpon is not distinct, so that one nature, [that] of the humanity, would be superfluous, since the Incarnation is conceived [to consist] in the mutual use of taking and giving, but Divine Scripture sometimes after the prosôpon of the divinity and sometimes after the prosôpon of the humanity, / names him Son and Christ and Lord. Gregory has said this, Ambrose has said this, Athanasius [has said] this: 'The Lord who [was born] of Mary is indeed the Son, by ousia in the nature of the Father, but by flesh of the seed of the house of David; for [he is of] the flesh of the Virgin Mary.' |263
Have I said anything new? [Have I said] not the same things in the same words, and in the same sense? For what have you condemned me? Is it possible to imagine for what reason you have done these things by yourselves and have not waited to make your examination with all the bishops? But also it is not [possible] to flee from their accusation which they have brought against me; that which they have finally written without protest ought [here] to be written.
Likewise from the same, from the twenty-fourth roll. Now I observe in [the case of] our own people that they have acquired a great reverence and fervour of piety but have lapsed from the rest of the faith of the knowledge of God. Yet this is not [to be attributed] to the impiety of the people, but, that I may speak justly, [it is] because the very teachers have not had time at all to set before them the teaching of the exact faith. . . 113 This man has openly said therein that none of the teachers before him has spoken before the people / aught that he has spoken.
But hear also concerning this----for this discourse is not very difficult and arduous----and ask these very persons; for they will tell the truth, though unwilling. In what treatise are these things said by me? [Is it] not in the deposit which was laid down by the holy Fathers who were assembled in Nicaea? 114 And what was my aim? [Was it] for the reprimanding of those who have taught wrongly or [of those] who have taught correctly and holily and with piety? And I have proved to the people that my own teaching and the teaching |264 of these men [are] in agreement. Because they have not known the teaching of the Fathers they have been fighting with me, as though I were teaching outside the deposit of the Fathers. And I reprimanded them after the deposit of the Fathers, for not making known that whatsoever they were condemning is constantly in their mouths; and, lest I should reprimand them with excessive censure and vex them, I withheld myself from the accusation and I said concerning a person against whom there was no accusation: 'the teachers of the faith have no time to set before you the exactitude of the faith.' I said [it] simply without definition. How therefore have I accused all the Fathers before me as not having taught any of these things which I have taught the people, when my own aim and my work was this, namely, the teaching of them and the proving, after the deposit, that they taught these things and that I have said naught else apart from the deposit of the Fathers? But, from the ignorance and lack of instruction of the accusers they have supposed / concerning me: 'He is teaching us outside the teaching of these Fathers who have taught all of us.'
I have not then said that the teachers of sundry times have taught otherwise. How therefore should I have said that [they so taught], if [they taught] rightly? But I have said that they did not intelligibly and distinctly deliver to the people the deposit of the Fathers in order that they might hear and admire these things. For it [is] one thing for us to say that they have taught contrariwise, and another thing for us to say that they have delivered the very words without explanation, and another thing that, since they had not leisure, they could not teach according to what their intention was, and another thing that they were ignorant, or that I have been accusing them as heretics. For if I had finally accused the teachers before me thoroughly, I should also have accused the three hundred and eighteen on whose deposit [together] with the Fathers before me I was taking my stand. For none will say that I have said and taught these things apart from the teachers who [were] before me. I have said naught, |265 neither in word nor in thought nor [so as] to teach against those teachers who [were] before me. And yet if they have not read [it], you have written [it]. But you have nothing against me, because I have not said aught of those things whereof you have accused me. To this only, the chief point, have you clung; for this have I reprimanded you all. And you ought not also to believe these other things, since they have thus irreverently accused me, as persons who fear not God / and respect not men. But you have been abundantly convinced by him who was sitting with you in your assembly, as though indeed you could not otherwise escape than by quarrelling and by calumniating.
Those things which were done after the selection of these Chapters.
Yet after they have examined [my words] with all exactitude, as though Christ were seeing [them], they have condemned me without having found difficulty over anything or having quarrelled and without having established anything by question or by answer; but they were hastening in order that those who were about to come might not overtake them, that is, the Council of the East, which was near, and those from Rome. Neither have they examined nor even have they read; and, as I indeed suppose, even the things too which they have written they have written afterwards; the days and the time itself sufficed not for the writing and the signing. For it was apparent that they were signing against me gladly and freely, even without a cause; for not one indeed of them has written the cause on account of which they have deprived me, except only this man [who is] wise and intelligent above all men and able to say something intelligible, that is Acacius of Melitene: 'Because he has not confessed that God the Word died, he was worthy to be deprived, since he has made Divine Scripture to lie and further because he has calumniated Cyril with having said that God the Word died, / when |266
he has not [so] said; and he has also made the Scripture to lie, teaching that the birth and the suffering concerned not the divinity but the humanity, and he has calumniated also the very writings of the holy and godly bishop, Cyril, as though they call God the Word passible, a thing which neither he nor any other of those who think piously have dared to say. . . .'
Now on one of these [points] and not upon two of them it was right that I should be accused; but they were accepting against me contrary [charges] and in the greatness of their preoccupation they were not willing to break off that with which they were engaged, but they were zealous to withdraw themselves and to dissent, that they might not come under the judgement of the judges. But they disclaimed [us] as enemies in such wise as to prove their preoccupation and their anxiety and to be thought fearful by the bishops who were present and who were absent; and they did all things such as take place in wars. And the [followers] of the Egyptian 115 and those of Memnon, by whom they were aided were going round the city, girded and armed with rods, stiff-necked men, who rushed upon them with the clamour of barbarians and forcibly emitted from their nostrils a spirit of anger with fearful cries at no great distance, breathing [anger] without self-control, with all pride, against those whom they knew to be not in agreement with the things which were done by them. / They were taking bells round the city and were kindling fire in many places and handing round documents of various kinds; and all those things which were taking place were [matters] of astonishment and of fear, so that they blocked all the ways and made every one flee and not be seen, |267 and were behaving arbitrarily, giving way to drunkenness and to intoxication and to a disgraceful outcry. And there was none hindering, nor even bringing succour, and thus [men] were amazed. But all of it was being done against us, and for this reason we made use of the succour of the Emperor and of the authority of the Strategi, who were angered at the things which were done, though they let them be.
But there came the bishop of Antioch with many other bishops, whom they were seeking to win over to agree with them in what was unjustly and boldly done; and they named themselves an Oecumenical Council. And after they 116 knew the things which were being boldly done and their disgraceful audacity and their sudden war and the vehemence of the madness wherewith they were intentionally doing all things, they degraded from their episcopal rank the organizers of this disorder, who had raised up all this evil; yea, I mean Cyril and Memnon. But for the rest / of their organizers, they laid them under anathema, because they had discharged naught of the work of the episcopate, as persons who have made use not of the object and traditions, but [only] of the authority of the episcopate. And, in order that they might not deny or dissemble what was done against them, they wrote their deprivation in all parts of the city, that there might be for all of them witnesses that they had deprived them and for what reasons they had deprived them. They made these things known unto the Emperor through the letters of the Council, and their boldness in all of them and the war which had taken place after the fashion of barbarians.117 And for this reason also they allowed them not to pray in the apostolic church of Saint John, but [brought it about] that persons stoned them, and they hardly escaped and were rescued, and they said also the cause wherefore they made bold to do this: that whatever had caused this disturbance and division in the churches might not be examined by the Council; I mean |268 indeed the twelve Articles which were written irreverently and shamefully against God the Word,118 immortal and incorruptible; and that great forethought ought to be shown that such blasphemies as these, which not even the party of Arius have dared to speak openly against God the Word, should not be left without examination.
But Cyril also and his fellow-conspirators wrote to the Emperor, blaming John for many things, as though / he had boldly deprived Cyril by reason of the love which had been vowed by him toward me. And they were in need of their confirmation of my deposition and the setting aside of that of Cyril and of Memnon; for they dared not write the [acts] of John and of the Council that [sat] with him and their words: 'That, as it has been ordained by the letters of your Piety, they have been assembled in common with us and we have been examining the things required dispassionately and accurately in order to confirm the faith of the religion of the Fathers'----which has been commanded by the Emperor and required also by the Easterns, who also were constantly expecting these things. Those who had confidence in the Divine Scriptures and in the teaching of the Fathers dared not say, though [it were] in schema: 'Let there be a judgement!'----not even in order that they might escape a slanderous accusation. They indeed dared not hold an inquiry and a judgement concerning the things which were required to be [judged], because they had not confidence in the things which they wrote. So [that you may perceive] that I say them truly, read the report 119 of the latter and of the former, in order that you may know that the latter were always demanding that there should be a judgement, while the former were shunning [it]. |269
/ The letter which was sent to the Emperor by John, bishop of Antioch, and by the other bishops who were assembled with him.
Being commanded by your letters, we have reached Ephesus, the metropolis, and have found all [kinds of] turbulent fellows and the business 120 of the churches hampered with civil wars. For Cyril of Alexandria and Memnon of Ephesus have gathered themselves together and have assembled a vast assembly of country-folk and have not allowed the feast of Holy Pentecost nor the office[s] of morning and of evening to take place; and withal they have also closed the churches and the martyria; but they have assembled with themselves and with those whom they have deceived and have committed ten thousand iniquities and have trodden [under foot] the canons of the holy Fathers together with your commands: and that when the most illustrious count Candidianus, who was sent by your most Christian authority, testified unto them in writing and without writing that they should await the coming of all the holy bishops, and that then there should be [done] whatsoever seemed [good] unto the whole assembly, according to the letters of your Piety. Cyril also the Alexandrian sent [word] unto me by letters two days before that we should hold an assembly, as all the Council were awaiting my coming. For this reason we have caused the deposition of those two who have been mentioned above, of Cyril and of Memnon, and interdicted them / from every spiritual ministration. But the rest of them, who have participated with them in iniquity, we have inhibited until they anathematize the Articles which have been sent by Cyril which are full of wicked purpose and are in accord with the teaching of Apollinarius and of Arius and of Eunomius, and [until] according to the letters of your Piety they have assembled themselves together unanimously with us in tranquillity and have scrutinized accurately with us aught that is required and have confirmed the true faith of the Fathers. But as for my own insignificance, your Majesty knows that, in view of the length of the way and withal that we are journeying on land, we have advanced quickly and rapidly; for we have travelled forty stages 121 without even one rest being taken by us during our journey; and [this], it is within the authority of your most Christian |270 Majesty to learn from the inhabitants of all the cities through which we have passed. Withal however, both owing to the famine which has occurred in Antioch and owing to the daily brawls of the [diverse] parties and owing to the great and continuous rains which have taken place out of season and owing to the danger which came about through a flood which approached the city, we were detained also not a few days in the city itself.
But after the Emperor had seen these things, he was angered at what was being done against me without examination and without judgement, and he swore that there should be naught else except whatever had been before laid down to take place, that is, a judgement and an examination of the things which were required, so that for this purpose indeed the Oecumenical Council / was assembled, that it might at the |271 same time be convinced concerning the examination which should duly take place. But when the followers of Cyril saw the vehemence of the Emperor who was eager for this, thenceforth they roused up a disturbance and discord among the people with an outcry, as though the Emperor were opposed to God; they rose up against the nobles and the chiefs who acquiesced not in what had been done by them and were running hither and thither. And of such effrontery and boldness [were they that] they took also with them those who had been separated and removed from the monasteries by reason of their lives and their strange manners and had for this reason been expelled, and all who were of heretical sects and were possessed with fanaticism and with hatred against me. And one passion was in them all, Jews and pagans and all the sects, and they were busying themselves that they should accept without examination the things which were done without examination against me; and at the same time all of them, even those who had participated with me at table and in prayer and in thought, were agreed, [and] bound themselves together indistinguishably in affection and in visits to one another and by entertainment in [their] houses, and by covenant and by the confirmation of the things [done] against me, and were vowing vows one with another against me. Those too were willing who would surely not formerly have been supposed to be giving a welcome to heretics, although they were supposed / to be orthodox; in naught were they divided. There is indeed much to say on the subject of the dreams which they recounted, which they say that they saw concerning me, while others [saw] other things. And they amazed the hearers by the saints to be sure whom they saw and by the revelations which were recounted by them and by a prophecy which was fabricated.122 For there was none of them who was unaffected nor [any] that was distinct from their communion; I speak not only of Christians but also [of] pagans. For they were persuading all men of all the things which they were seeing, likening themselves to angels of light; and in all these |272 things they had first calmed and [afterwards] roused up the mind of the Emperor, that the inquiry which had been required and for which the Oecumenical Council was assembled might not take place. But when he was against their disgraceful [and] irreverent request in requiring that the judgement should not take place, they gave abundance of money to those who were nigh unto him. I have naught to say; for the Emperor allowed everything to take place in practice contrary to that to which he had clung in schema; for they were not frightened by him nor [feared] to cause sedition and to run about unto all men.
But there was added thereunto also the plotting of evils: for they held assemblies of priests and troops of monks and they took counsel / against me, helping them in this purpose. And they had as helpers in these things all the ministers 123 of the Emperor who used to probe into his very purpose, and they gave confidence to the former. As indeed the schema of the monks was very dear unto him, so all of them were unanimous in the one purpose of persuading him that there should be no judgement, while the things which had been done without examination against me should stand. And all the monks participated in the one purpose because of me, [even] those who in the rest of the other things were without love among themselves, [some] being envious and [others] envied, especially for the sake of the praise of men. And they took for them-[selves] as organizer and chief, in order to overwhelm the Emperor with amazement, Dalmatius the archimandrite, who for many years had not gone forth from his monastery; and a multitude of monks surrounded him in the midst of the city, chanting the offices,124 in order that all the city might be assembled with them and proceed before the Emperor to be able to hinder his purpose. For they had prepared all these things in advance in order that there might not be any |273 hindrance and they went in with [the chanting of] the office even to the Emperor.
But when the Emperor saw Dalmatius, he shook his head and put up his hand as one who is in astonishment at the sight of a person; and he said: 'What is the cause which has constrained thee to break thine own pact? For we were coming unto thee, but now why hast thou come unto us? And especially in the midst of the city! Thou, one that not even / in thy monastery hast been seen outside thy cell nor usest to let thyself be seen of all men, hast now made thyself as it were a spectacle both unto men and unto women. For why should there not have been many constraining causes which would have needed thy coming forth? [For example], mine own sickness even unto death and [that] of my relatives, the disturbances and the tumults which have been in the city and which had need of the intervention and the prayer of some one that they might not extend unto blood and unto death; wars and destruction and ruin and famines and earth-quakes, which could have been stayed by prayer unto God alone----and has not one of these persuaded thee to come forth from thy monastery?'
Dalmatius says: 'Yea, Emperor, it was by no constraint such as this among these things that there was need of my coming forth. For this reason indeed God has not made me to know [aught of these difficulties], for he has settled them otherwise. But now God has commanded me, [even] me, to counsel thy Majesty, and I have been commanded to bear thee witness that thou transgressest against thyself in transgressing against the Council and perverting its judgement. Thou hast assembled the Council for judgement and it has judged; it knows how it has judged; it is responsible unto God.'
The Emperor said unto him: 'I too find no impiety in this man nor any cause worthy of [his] deprivation. I testify unto thee and unto all men: I am innocent; for through no human / inclination have I loved this man and done the things which have taken place, so that he has been judged |274 and condemned, as those who rise up against God and usurp for themselves the [prerogatives] of the priests. Neither now nor formerly was I zealous for this ordination in such wise that I should be thought to be surely avenging myself and seeking retaliation on account of his election; but in participation with you all I caused this man to come by force, though his fathers' house and his race were loved by him. You have been the cause of these things, and not I. When, O Dalmatius, I was entreating thee to be [my helper] in this affair and was requesting thee with many [entreaties] not to decline the service of God, thou yet didst decline and didst beseech me on the contrary, [saying]: "Constrain me not because I am a recluse." And I also requested another of the monks, one who was supposed to be some one and illustrious for piety, and he too declined as one that knew not [how] to carry out this service, because he was a recluse. For all of you said that Constantinople was in need of a bishop, one who [would be] loved by all men for his words and for his manner of life and who would be a teacher of the churches and the mouth of all men in everything. But when I declined for these reasons, [was it] that I did aught by my authority? Did I not again request of you to choose one who is such as this man? / Did I not even likewise beseech the clergy of Constantinople to choose whosoever was suitable? Did I not say the same things unto the bishops, "It is yours to choose and to make a bishop". And you too in like manner I besought; did I not leave [it] in your hands all this time, having waited patiently that you should choose peaceably, lest by haste there should be a mistake in him who was chosen? However, you chose, and did I not accept your choice? Requirest thou [that] I should say aught concerning [the rest of] you? Have I spoken of their zeal and their running about and their gifts and their promise and their oaths and everything [of] those who were seeking to become [bishops] as by purchase? Among the latter whom would you have sought to be [bishop]? But I pass over these things; which choice would you have sought to be [ratified]? |275
Thine own or that of the former or of another? For some would have chosen [one and others] another, not as by choice as making their choice [fall on] the more excellent ones but on those who were evil; and each was glorifying him who had been chosen by himself and was speaking evil of the one who was chosen by the others and accusing him with evil accusations. But you have not agreed upon one and were not agreeing upon him upon whom the people agreed. I have read before you the utterances of the people concerning each one of those who have been chosen. What then ought I to have done and have not done? You / monks agreed not with the clergy, nor had the clergy one purpose, and the bishops were divided and the people were likewise divided, and one was striving for [one and another for] another. Nor even so gave I myself authority, but I left the choice with you. But after all of you were found at a loss, all of you came and gave me [authority] to choose whomsoever I wanted. But thereupon, after I was hardly convinced, though all of you besought [me], I bethought me that none ought to be made [bishop] from here, lest there should be enmity against him and he should be hated; for you were all hating one another and were hated of one another, seeing that you were all zealous about this affair. But I had wanted a stranger who was not known by those here and knew them not, one who was famous for his preaching and for his manner of life. For people had informed me that there was [one] such as this in Antioch, [speaking] of Nestorius. This man I sent [and] fetched, though I grieved all that city; notwithstanding everything had been like this, I yet caused him to come for the sake of your own advantage which was more precious unto me than theirs. But when it happened, it was not supposed by you to be such. What then is it right to do unto the man? You have not examined him that he may make a defence of that wherewith he is reproached, nor has your bishop been judged by one consent, but the bishop of Alexandria / and [the bishop] of Rome have judged that he was one that believes not correctly and ought to be convinced of their decision. But he requested and awaited the judgement as if an injustice were done unto him and blamed |276 them for not having accused him correctly, because he was a bishop and ought to be summoned to the judgement of the bishops and not to my judgement. Nor was it [the case] that any one whatsoever was a judge nor ought the bishop of Constantinople to have been heard before [any] one man. Did I judge as [was] pleasing unto me? I authorized the Council. Who is it that requested a judgement and submitted not thereto? Who is just? He that submits unto judgement and requests [it]? Or he that flees from the judgement? Could he liken himself unto the former, to do unto them whatsoever he himself suffered, and assemble the bishops who were under him and those of the East who were convinced by him, even so as to judge him guilty and accuse him himself? But he has indeed done this. But he has submitted unto the judgement, especially [with a view] to putting an end to these divisions. For there is no law that the bishop of Alexandria or of any city whatsoever should not be judged when he is to be judged. But also, when the Council assembled and sat, they required him [to present himself] once or twice, and he refused even to answer them. For what reason? Speak, dissemble not. For the things which took place are not forgotten by me; thus have they been irreverently done / so that the plotting which they plotted could not be hidden. For he has not declined the judgement but the preparation of the Council which has been [but] incompletely assembled to judge [him], a thing which pleased not us ourselves. Neither is that wherein an enemy sits among the judges a Council, nor have we ourselves commanded that aught should take place before all the Council should be assembled; for an assembly of all of them, and not of some, we call a Council. Because we saw aforetime the plotting and the trickery which took place, we ordered that the Council should not be [held] incomplete but that they should await the assembly of all the bishops that the examination of the thing required might; take place by question and by answer. They then dissolved the Oecumenical Council and the law of the tribunal; [it was] they who reckoned our will as nothing. And the bishop of Antioch has done well in |277 regard to them, since he has deprived them of their episcopal rank lest, in remaining in their same ranks, they should dishonour their rank. Wherein therefore has he acted foolishly, who required of them that they should wait for those who were distant and that the rule which had been given should not be infringed and that there should be no dissension in the Council? Ought he, who did none of those things which it had been decided should be carried out, but was content to be judged by every one without declining, to have been deprived for this? '
/ After he [had] finished saying these things, he added and said: 'Neither do I find any cause of blame in this man; I and my empire and my race are guiltless of this impiety.' And the others agitated themselves at this very reply and seized upon it, as [if] to be sure he let pass and left alone those things which had been wrought against me in whatsoever they wrought. And Dalmatius and those with him cried out: 'On me let this impiety be, O Emperor; I rebuke thee and thine on account of these things; I will make my defence for these things before the tribunal of Christ, as having done this very deed' . . . . And after he [had] received this promise, that the responsibility for the impious deeds committed against me should not be [his], he decreed and confirmed the things which had been wrought against me. Thus I was judged and thus too was the examination [carried out].
And after the things were finished which were wrought against me by them, the impious band went forth from [his] Majesty and some spread abroad [some things and others] other things against me; and they carried Dalmatius around, reclining on a couch which was spread with coverlets, and mules bare him in the midst of the streets of the city, in such wise that it was made known unto all men that a victory had been gained over the purpose of the Emperor, amidst great assemblies of the people and of the monks, who were dancing and clapping the hand[s] and crying out the things which can be said against one who has been deprived for iniquity. But after it was known that the intention of the Emperor had been overcome by them, / all the heretics, who had formerly been |278 deprived by me, took part with them, and all with one mouth were alike proclaiming my anathema, taking courage from anything that had taken place, in every part of the city, but especially in the parts by the sanctuary, in such wise as to add unto them[selves] crowds of the people to commit iniquity without reverence; and thus they took courage, clapping the hands and saying naught else except 'God the Word died'.
And there was not any distinction between heretics and orthodox, all of them together rising up against God the Word. And they were fighting without mercy against those who were not persuaded to predicate the suffering of the nature of God the Word, saying, not that the immortal adhered to the mortal to cause the mortal to die without its [being itself liable unto] mortality, but on the contrary that the immortal adhered to the mortal that it might become mortal and [that] thus it rose, having died with him, in the immortality of him who rose, and everything like this in that the immortal became mortal, that indeed again the mortal might become immortal in such wise that it might in its nature be receiving the [attribute] of immortality and that of mortality according to the might of him that commanded whereby he can make the immortal mortal and the mortal immortal. And these things were said openly by these and by those and by other heretics, being chanted and applauded / in the houses and in the streets and in all the churches, in consequence of which things thou couldest not distinguish the things which were being said in the churches or know whether the very churches belonged to the heretics or to the orthodox, such was the agreement and the zeal to embrace the faith and to confess God passible. And they were making use of demonstrations such as these while they were being accused for the same things and were making a defence thereof in the same [terms]. And they all had one mouth and one heart and one agreement against God the Word, in such wise that the services in the churches and in the monasteries were forgotten and they were busied with sedition and persecutions and affairs such as these. As for those who were furnishing them with money and supplies and provision, by all those things which they were giving they |279 were both preparing them and demanding of them to be ceaselessly engaged in these things.
It therefore seemed [good] to the Emperor that I should be under [sentence of] deprivation and that both Cyril and Memnon likewise should be under [sentence of] deprivation. It would then have been supposed that he did this in order that he might constrain all of us to come to an agreement and to be accepted and to accept one another and that he bore patiently my deprivation that he might make us of one purpose. And further he was waiting without a reconciliation with the others in order that he might cause me, even me, by all means to come in, as well as through their zeal and their request on behalf of Cyril, that it might be supposed that the wisdom of [his] Majesty [had] defeated / their intentions. But this was not so; but, either because his purpose, which had been correctly [formed] from the beginning, was changed or because this had been his purpose from the beginning, he was indeed [only] in schema on my side, until he found patience enough to sell [me] for money. But, howsoever all has happened, I have arrived at this.
But when Count John, who was set over the Treasury, was sent to Ephesus, it was then supposed that he had come that I and Cyril might speak with one another, all the Council having been assembled and [that] therefore it was an affair not to be declined. In everything there had been [cause] for fear and amazement unto the others, such had been their fear and trembling at speaking with me and at having judgement [passed] according to our words concerning the things about which inquiry was made. He, however, carried not his vehemence to the full but slackened, because that which is dear unto men [had] fallen upon him,125 that which also was thenceforward mentioned as in a rumour; yet at the end he that reveals hidden things revealed it and brought it to light and made it known unto the eyes of all men. And it made him ashamed during his life, and after his death he was convicted: both he who sold the truth, that is John, and he who [did] more than he, that is Cyril, when the gold of iniquity was / exacted. |280 But let these things be set down in the midst and [such things] as they proclaim and prove with their voice that they may teach all men.
For, after John had come to Ephesus, he commanded each one to come, and Memnon fled from the things which were taking place; and when they were bringing him forth from the altar, he 126 both summoned him as to a friendly conference and handed him over to be guarded that he might not be found wanting in aught of those things which ought [to be submitted] to the examination of the authorities, of those which all men ought to do. But after we were all assembled in order to hear in common the letters of the Emperor, his purpose to such an extent slackened and became altogether different that he made himself ridiculous rather than be zealous about the things which were thus worthy of zeal. For when the letter of [his] Majesty, which had been written unto all men, was about to be read, Cyril persuaded him and those with him that I should not come into their presence but that I should hear what the Emperor wrote from the curtain. He brought this about without letting aught of the things which were right enter into his purpose, because he had already been bribed. And when they perceived that the things which concerned me were being read, they praised the Emperor with many praises; but when it came to the [affairs] of Cyril, they cried out and swore that those things should not be read. Of such childish / licence as this used they to make use, who were formerly in trepidation and were zealous, if it were possible, to bury themselves in the earth, when they had no single defence, neither concerning the things which they [had] dared and carried out outside the command [of the Emperor] nor concerning the examination of the faith. But after I had been given into custody, so then [was] Cyril also, as though on the supposition that we should not enter and approach our cities, and----a thing which also occurred aforetime by the command of the Emperor----that we should not be received by the chiefs and by those who were charged with the care of the cities. But finally he commanded |281 me to dwell in my city where it was pleasing unto me, not by permission but in consequence of mine own request. For I had requested many times and I [had] requested of those, who had freedom of speech with the Emperor and who were supposed [to be] my friends, [as] a favour that they would inform the Emperor that for me indeed it was not a question of the human glory of the episcopate, but that I was longing for mine own cell----this favour he has done me; but before this, that there should be [held] even without me an examination of the faith so that they might not be deprived of the faith by reason of their passion against me. For I had seen the snares and the wars which had formerly taken place against me; and when there was no cause for accusation against my prosôpon so that they should send me forth and deprive me from Constantinople, they came on [the pretext of] the faith. And by reason of their passion against me, they were impassioned also against the faith. So it seemed unto me that this [was] advantageous and helpful, that I / should disregard myself that that might take place for which rather there was need; for whenever enmity is dissolved, how often do men come to themselves?
But he 127 gave unto me the dowry of [his] favour, even that which he had sold unto Cyril, as this too was revealed after the death of the latter by the confession concerning me which was found in [his] writings; for immediately that this confession had been [made], there came that death which confutes all men and spares not; of such aids as this used I to make use. But while I on the one hand was dispatched in such honour as this, Cyril on the other hand was kept under guard for a while; but he who was being guarded with all caution hid himself from them that were guarding him in Ephesus and from the chiefs who had been commanded not to let him cross over unto Alexandria and set out from Ephesus and gained his [own] city without being hindered by any one. For this too had been prepared beforehand and bought by him with money; for he came not out of the city by force but |282 transgressed the letters of [His] Majesty against the will of the Emperor. He also [brought it about] that he escaped from the constraint and the punishment for his transgression of the command of [his] Majesty. But it was surely granted that all these things should occur thus by reason of that rage which was against him as it were in the folly of deception, in the likeness of which was also [his] friendship for me, since on account of this that, which was supposed / friendship for me, was always [a source of] harm unto me, because it was not [friendship] for me but [a desire] to sell [me]. For the enmity towards the other recoiled in fact upon me.128
Thus then these things against me were carried out from the beginning, and they left nothing undone which could convict me of having told a lie, and they were convicted by those [things] which they wrote. For [it is] in the power of every one, who wishes to examine [these things] with all exactitude and not in anticipation to pass over the things which were written by the others at Ephesus, to understand by reflection consequently from their writings who it is that has stirred up all these things and for what reason he has stirred them up and for what reason he has not consequently acted as a brother towards his brother, reprimanding, counselling, demanding, looking into these things by himself, but was the first to reveal them and spread abroad abundantly trouble and war and enmity by the letters which he had written. For what reason, when I have written an answer to his letter and when I have accepted [part] thereof as correctly stated and have made known unto him the things concerning which I doubted whether they were well stated as well as the purpose wherefore I accepted them not, either instructing or as if on the one hand he understood not or [as if] on the other hand it were so, |283 that he might establish that which was written----for what reason has he stirred up the Egyptian and the Roman Council about the things which [are] against me? / Hast thou requested me to establish mine own points as brother to brother? But thou didst wish by thyself to select these [writings] of mine and bring about a verdict against me when I was far away from thee. Wherefore hast thou not come unto me with thine own Council as one requiring [something] of me or as one reprimanding me, as they that [were] before thee did in regard to those whom they saw to be in need of their own coming: as Alexander against Arius and as Timothy 129 against Gregory 130 or as Theophilus against John? 131 For there was none to hinder thee nor yet to deprive him that was accused of [the right to] defend himself. There is none far away and requiring to be judged and [yet] judging another; there is no accuser to be the judge of his enemy far away. For what reason, when thou wast calling an Oecumenical Council, didst thou together with the incomplete Council decline to come and defend the things [of] which thou didst accuse me and condemn me, when I was not present? For what reason, when thou earnest, didst thou not wait for the Council which was required but wast frightened thereof? Wherefore, when I was requesting thee and hindering thee and adjuring thee to wait for the Council, didst thou refrain from [awaiting] the coming of the Eastern bishops, and didst not await the Count who was / charged with the duty of the maintenance of order but didst despise all of them together? For what reason, after all the bishops came and the Emperor commanded that indeed, since there had not previously been an inquiry and an examination, inquiry should be held into them between me and thee and the bishops of the East, didst thou do all [these] things that there might not be examination and judgement?
One was his aim and one his purpose from the beginning even unto the end: that there should not be a judgement and an examination on the subject of the things whereof he accused me, while mine [was] that there should be a judgement and an examination on the subject of the things whereof he accused |284 me, though not because the flight and the haste of this man had been victorious. For what reason was I zealous whereas thou didst decline, if thou wert confident in the proof which thou hadst from the Scriptures and from the Fathers? But he feared me, [some one will say,] because of the help which [I received] from the Emperor. He [it was], as men know, who was rather in actual fact for surrendering me and not for helping; but [granted] that this was [so], who then was hindering the judgement from taking place without the help of the Emperor? For after it had taken place, after I [had] already departed from Constantinople and the Council of the East was requiring that there should be a judgement and an examination of the faith, even without me myself, the Emperor too had also commanded that the two deprivations of those, whosoever [they were], who had been deprived by the Council, should be retained without [further] examination, but that they should choose each seven bishops 132 and [that] they should be sent by both the / Councils to Constantinople in order that they might speak before the Emperor concerning the things required and [that] the rest of the bishops might be dismissed from Ephesus.
Have they spoken with one another? Yet, since they [had] proceeded to Chalcedon in Bithynia in accordance with the letters of [his] Majesty, he 133 received the two parties of the bishops who were sent by the Council. But after he [had] asked of the Easterns the cause of the division which had taken place, they said that they were introducing a passible God and that they themselves were not persuaded to agree before inquiry was made into these things, [adding] 'Even if the Emperor treats us with violence, we shall not be persuaded to admit a passible God; for he that has not a nature that suffers suffers not, while he that has such a nature as this is not consubstantial with one who has one such as the former; but if he who suffers not is consubstantial with the one who suffers, even he who suffers not can suffer'. And the Emperor |285 was in trepidation as it were at this supposition, and even his ears could not endure these blasphemies, and he shook his purple robes, saying: 'I have no part at all with such men as that.' 134 However, he commanded not to constrain them by violence but, on the contrary, that [the question] should not be left but that inquiry should be made into the truth in every manner whatsoever concerning the things to be examined; and with these [words] he dismissed them with many praises, having commanded them to make ready this examination.
/ But after this was heard, the others again stirred themselves up that there might not be a judgement and an examination of these things. But the authority of your Majesty sent away the Easterns, but commanded you 135 ----and by 'you' I mean thine own sympathizers, them that were executing thy vengeance----to enter into Constantinople and to establish another bishop in mine own place.136 Where then had been the judgement? And before whom? Say, in whose presence? Although it was a farcical judgement, say, you who have written the things that took place, how was it brought about? For they were many; be ye not persuaded by any of them that [are] my own [followers], lest you say that he wrote out of human love. Lean upon your own [followers], who have written of the things that were brought about. But you cannot efface what happened thus and was written at that time.137
But perhaps some one will say that whatever was brought about was clearly a farce. But it was an unscrupulous thing to bring about things which were unbelievable and in need of much indulgence. For the things which were done thus are unbelievable; but they have indeed been thus prepared not only against me but also against the faith, on account of which I was stirred up and was diligent to write and to teach the things which were taking place just as they were taking place, lest men should suppose that the judgement and the examination took place and should believe without a reason and depart from the faith. For the providence / and the judgement of |286 God have been revealed unto all men, although there are [some] that see and see not, who have arisen against me out of enmity from the beginning, though now he 138 is willing to be the first to drive every one to evil against me who have been condemned without judgement. And at the same time he has put a barrier before all men that there might be no further return for me, and has thereby hemmed in the party of the Easterns and of the rest of the countries which had not taken part with them in what they brought about and [which] had given help unto me. Nor was I acquainted with any of the things which were taking place nor was I the first to think of rebuking and accusing them for the judgement [conducted] without justice.
And I summoned an Oecumenical Council against the Council which had been [held] incompletely, in order that it might be shown in the sight of all men for what reason they did what they did; since it was not for the faith that he was confident and enthusiastic but that his own [affairs] and mine might not be examined, while by means of letters and various other means he had corrupted those who were nigh unto the Emperor and unto the Empresses and was persuading [them] that there should not be a Council. And this was told unto the Emperor and he was much reprimanded by letters, lest he should be able to dissemble; for he ought to rejoice at a judgement, if all these things were not [uttered] in semblance, so that he might be zealous in proving to the Emperor that his purpose was straightforward and just. For this was done in such wise / that he should have no defence, as one that knoweth not the things of which he is rebuked and denies [them]; and he hindered the judgement not once nor twice but even unto death. But the Emperor had acted contrariwise toward him who was blamed by him and condemned me, even me who was honoured and praised, while many were testifying that I was injured. Thus absurdities were growing so many that they were not kept dark; but that their oppression might be revealed, he 139 properly made even him 138 a witness and a judge for me, so that [their] oppression might be indefensible. |287 For all of them testified that we were not found doing iniquity and that they condemned me without reason. And while I was in the same [condition] without examination and without judgement, the others worked amongst them[selves] and changed all the things that concerned me.
Concerning the things which were done when Cyril and the Easterns met together and +before+ 140 seven of each party 141 were sent [to Chalcedon].
But let us speak as in a few words: perhaps some one will ask: 'How therefore did the Eastern Council also condemn thee in such wise, that then not even a single cause of defence was left unto thee?' For by the persuasion of [his] Majesty, and by this [Council] every one is the more convinced, even so that none can hide it. For one and the same was the word concerning every one of those who were in accord with me and were accepting / me and were contending with me and [concerning every one] of those who were being accused with me and were being insulted with me, since those who were changed over with them had not a single cause to change over from me. Tell thou us the cause for which they changed over from thee; for [it is] thy boldness which was against me and thy writings and the Articles which thou hast composed. They anathematized thee and deprived thee in Ephesus; and thou canst not deny neither thou nor they, what you have done in your writings. When therefore they were doing these things, they were testifying about me in two things, both in respect to orderliness and in respect to piety; but thee on the contrary they were accusing both as a bold man and as an heretic, and they summoned thee to judgement to reprimand thee for them both and they judged that thou wast worthy of deposition. And when you were summoned by the Emperor as to judgement, they were the first to accuse thee; |288 for they were persuaded of your boldness and of your tyrannical behaviour and of all the evils which you caused in Ephesus. For in Chalcedon also you closed all the churches against them before the judgement should be [given], in order that they might not enter to pray, and you blocked the roads [leading] to the Emperor and were meeting them with stones and clubs and were driving them into narrow places as into places whence men [that were] strangers, being not acquainted with the roads, had not [any means] of escape, / since they were coming in the hope of order [being maintained] by the Emperor; and thus they were hardly rescued from those who were distressing them, until the Emperor sent the help of the soldiers to rescue them.
But there was an assemblage of those who were practised in sedition without number,---- then was I summoned from Ephesus,----[consisting] at that time of Egyptians and of monks from Constantinople and of those who were renegade from monasticism and all those who by reason of any cause whatever had been driven out and were zealous for the work of agitators and were supposed on account of the habit of monks to be acting with enthusiasm. Then they were taking from the monasteries robes together with food and provisions, which were being given unto them as the wages of the fervour of love, and they were fattening their bodies therewith instead of [practising] continence. From the things which thou wast sending and bringing from the granaries and the stores of wine and of oil and of vegetables and all kinds of clothes, thou didst fill the monasteries which were being set apart for this and other places, in such wise that even the holy places of prayer were being encumbered, and the issues and the entries of every place which could receive [them] were full thereof. These things [it was] which were taking place before every one and thou wast paying for them with the things which |289 are called 'benedictions',142 which were being given instead of wages thereof, a thing which heretofore / thou hast not done nor [wilt do] hereafter. And thou wast carrying out these things so that thou mightest not be supposed to be sending these things so as to cause sedition, but that, as they were coming into the monasteries and were being received by the monasteries, the recipients might not be convicted for having indeed received them and for acting irreverently as disturbers and causers of tumult, in being supposed [to be] enthusiastic. For thou wast letting them bring about anything at all and wast doing everything that men might not believe that they were doing these things.
Tell me therefore for what reason thou wast letting these things be done and for what thou wast driving out them that were suffering these things, so that they were not even accounted worthy to be heard concerning aught whereof they were being driven out. What was their purpose about thee and what about me when they returned to the East? Indeed every one of them warned his city not to agree to what was carried out against me. For what reason was a decree sent by the Emperor, by the hand of Aristolaus,143 to constrain them to accept whatever was carried out against me? And was it sent unto them as unto persons who were and because they were [ inclined] toward me? For what reason was he commanding them to accept thee among the bishops? And what [was] the reason that persuaded them / to accept thee among the bishops? You saw not one another and you spoke not with one another, nor have you said nor have you heard for what cause you were divided; and it was for you to accept without judgement and without examination and without |290 a Council what you accepted not in judgement, and for the others to accept what they accepted not! But of yourself you thought that you were reconciled with the others concerning the things whereof you were justly blamed in order justly to confirm the two Councils either through fear or by patience or by partiality or by all of them together. What defence have you [to make] before those who are blaming you for having made a secret agreement in partiality and by deceitful means? 'The Emperor's command. It is the Emperor who has commanded us and who has prepared this for us.'
Say! why then dost thou ask me how they have accepted my deposition who formerly accepted it not? Ask me not, but I [will ask] thee; how hast thou accepted the faith which formerly thou didst not accept? How hast thou hidden thy Chapters on account of which thou hast been deprived? How have they accepted thee who accepted not thy [writings]? But how have they, who accepted not thine impious Chapters, accepted the deposition which was [pronounced] against me? These [questions] need asking and answering. For / the affair wherein thou wast openly judged by every one, willing and unwilling, made me not defenceless, but on the contrary it caused me to need no other defence. These things therefore cause those who are wanting to examine to know how they happened, as you too will confess with me therein. For the others deprive themselves and condemn themselves by their own judgement, since they have accepted not what was examined by the Council but what you have accepted in the participation of both of you 144, willing and unwilling, in the settlement, apart from the rest of the others, in such wise as not to settle in the name of the Council things which they wanted [to have settled] once for all for better or for worse but to prove that they did things pleasing unto the Emperor in accepting what was carried out against me, though formerly they were not accepting [it]; but they were zealous, however, to shun [all] mention of the Articles. And they were [attached] to these two parties, [some to one and] others [to the other] |291 against one another: thou [being inclined] to my deprivation and the others to the denunciation of thy Articles, on account of which we have accepted every burden. But I have accepted all sufferings and have not agreed nor----but let this be said with the aid of God----shall I agree until my last breath. For this reason, in that they have accepted / what formerly they accepted not, they are the causes of their own condemnation and are suppressing also the things which were carried out against me. For by the suppression of the Articles my deposition also is suppressed with them; or was it not because I accepted them not [that] my deprivation has taken place? For other cause there was not for my deposition.
But thou sayest: 'I have not suppressed the Articles, but I have accepted John who has confessed with me and has agreed with me on the faith as against thee.' John also has said the same: 'I have accepted thee, Cyril, who hast confessed with me on the words of the faith.' Who then [is] he that has accepted his companion? And who [is] he that has been accepted? For both of you say them and are persuading those who have separated themselves and have distinguished [themselves] from the deceptive peace which you have made: thou indeed, in that the others have accepted my deprivation which they were not formerly accepting, [and because] thou wast supposing that they accepted also these Articles which I was not accepting; and he, because he accepts not the writing of thy Articles in the deposit of the faith----men of whom thou wast determined that they should agree with thee in the things whereof men were correctly accusing them. Or did not our inquiry and our war and our strife take place that we might not accept them?
But it is [possible] to say that it was not because they were suppressed [that] they were not written in the deposit of the faith, / when an agreement had been effected, but because they had been without division and without inquiry. If all our inquiry and dispute had been for the purpose of the suppression and the refutation of these things, for no other reason were they not written when the agreement was effected, than that they had not been accepted by common opinion and |292 agreement. How then dost thou cling to them as though they were accepted, things which were not accepted in your confessions [of faith]? For in the course of coming to terms these things were not to be left alone, so that thou and thine own [followers] made not use of them as (being] orthodox nor the Easterns as [being] heretical; for that would not be any coming to terms on the faith, but disputes and divisions.
For what reason, however, was there no suppression of these things in confession [of faith] in the written documents? However, they were left alone. First indeed because they were giving way to the vehemence of [his] Majesty and men were requiring that every one so ever should make peace; after this, because they were wanting to do him the favour of not anathematizing his Articles in written documents, since it sufficed for them not to accept them and not to write in the written documents those things, which formerly he vehemently wanted to be accepted. But for what reason did he accept [the proposal] that they should be left out of the written documents, if he wished for this----as indeed [was] what he was wishing----that they / should be accepted as orthodox? In the first place indeed [it was] lest he should come to the necessity of a disputation and should fall and the Easterns should arise against him and require before everything that he should be deprived for these things, as one who was condemned----a thing which he feared, for, when he was being constrained and pressed, it was necessary for him clearly to say what he believed; since he would either seem to believe what was [written] in the Articles and in his letter or, otherwise, actually to have imagined as even the Easterns. In both [cases] he would be accused: either of saying the same things and having appeared as a wrongdoer or of clearly having revealed himself as an heretic. Yet in order that he might not suffer this, of his own will he agreed and adopted [their views] in order that they might have peace without the written documents and the Articles; and next that they might concede unto him that which concerned me, which he was demanding, that is my deprivation, in order that I might have no further [opportunity |293 of] making answer, in that all of them were come together at the same time against me, a thing for which he had been eager from the beginning. Yet notwithstanding he succeeded not, because it came about by the vehemence of [his] Majesty and not through a just judgement.
/ The letter of Cyril to Acacius, bishop of Melitene.145 Unto those who were blaming him for the agreement which he made with the Easterns, and how I made [my] defence before those who were blaming the agreement which came about.
The one 146 indeed made [his] defence as though he [had] not accepted thy Articles but discarded them, while all of you were zealous for them. But the other 147 says that he had not been content to anathematize them, though they were very zealous that they should anathematize the Articles. The latter however [says]: 'I have brought about what was indeed needful for you but incredible; [to wit] that they have of their [own] will accepted the deposition of Nestorius, whereby they have also accepted the Articles.' But the former 146 denies not that he has accepted the deposition, but [it is] because thou hast accepted and confessed in written document the faith whereby the deposition is set aside; saying that thy faith is not a [matter of] dispute between thee and us in the written documents according to the certainty of our words, since thou distinguishest the natures and the divine utterances concerning both the natures. What we were all zealous to confess and thou confessedst not, has now come to pass. For he was the first to establish in every possible manner what was needful for the faith; but we have not hindered the establishment also of those things wherewith they were calumniated, but rather have we made [ready] the way.
/ And the one 147 indeed says: 'I have made them say Mother of God", which they used not formerly to accept.' |294 Moreover he prides himself and extols himself against them that were disputing against this confession. But the other has confessed that I accepted quite simply [the name] 'Mother of God'. There is then need to state the meaning, according to which the hypostatic and the natural union of God and the natural birth from a woman is excluded. For he says that we confess Saint Mary the mother of God because God the Word was made flesh and was made man from her and, since the conception, he therein united himself unto the temple which was taken. And it was not that he was born but that he was united unto the temple which was taken and was born of her. For we decline not the term 'birth' but the 'hypostatic union of God the Word'. For this reason we have caused it to be excluded. And the one 148 indeed predicates of God the Word God whole and man whole who in ousia is both [ousias]; and for this reason he has written, saying, 'He was born of the Father before the worlds in his divinity, but in the last days the same for us and for our salvation was born of the Virgin Mary in his humanity'. He says that the same was born of the Father and of the Virgin Mary in the humanity, here again also because he has not examined clearly with a view to establishing the things which were required or which are required, that is, one Lord Jesus Christ, whole man [formed] of a rational soul and of a body, in such wise that Christ / and the Son and Jesus are in the two ousias. And in everything he is God as well as man by nature and in everything he is by nature man in the same way as God the Word; both of them exist in ousia, [and] for this reason each of them [exists] by himself.
Because these things have been laid down without comparison he drags them in to [serve his own] purpose according to his own aim and defends [them] to his sympathizers and deceives them, there being none indeed that is not surely calumniated, and each attracts his companion to his own aim. And he accuses me of not having correctly said that which was said by the Easterns, who [according to him] say that |295 God was born of a woman, whereas I say [it] not; and he states my own words according to hearsay; for he says:
He 149 says that God passed through the Virgin, the mother of Christ, [as] we have learned from Divine Scripture; but we learn not indeed anywhere that he was born of her. And elsewhere in his interpretation he has said: 'And nowhere therefore does Divine Scripture say that God, but Jesus and Christ and the Son and the Lord, came into being from the virgin, the Mother of Christ.' For by saying these things he divides our Lord into two sons, so that the one is uniquely Son, Son and Christ and our Lord, he that was born of God the Father, God the Word, and again the other [was] uniquely Son and Christ and Lord, he that was born of the holy virgin.
How dissemblest thou the truth? Not only does the one 150 say this clearly, but the others 151 / name the holy virgin the mother of God because they speak of one Son and Christ and Lord, whole in his divinity and whole in his humanity.
But add what thou hast accepted and confessed, that there has been a union of two natures and that for this reason we confess one Christ, one Son, one Lord. And deceive not the wise Acacius and through him the rest; for it would not escape such a man as he----in such wise as to be blamed for the faith to which he was reconciled against thee ---- that perhaps thou clingest also to these [theories] of mine or rather to those of orthodoxy, which thou hast accepted in all this trouble. For I have confessed two natures united, but thou wast denying [them]: that there is of the divinity and of the humanity one Christ and one Lord and one Son; he was not born of woman in the divinity, but in the humanity; not as he is God |296 is he one Son of two natures united, but he is one as man. Where then do I speak of two natures, one indeed solely Son and Christ and Lord, God the Word who was born of the Father, but the other solely Christ by himself [born] of the holy virgin? Thou also understandest not these sections which thou hast written down: 'We have learned from Divine Scripture that God has passed through the holy virgin, the mother of Christ', of which thou hast written / that I say them. How then proclaimest thou that I call God the Word who was born of the Father one Christ uniquely but the man who [was born] of Saint Mary another Christ? Of whom then sayest thou that I have said that God passed through her? For it is evident that [I spoke] of him who was born of the Father, [namely] of God the Word. How therefore do I call Christ any other than God the Word, him who was born of the Father? I have said that he passed through even the blessed Mary, because he derived not the origin of [his] birth from her as the bodily frame which was born of her. For this reason I have said that he who is God the Word has surely passed through but was surely not born, because he derived not his origin from her.152 But there both exists and is named one Christ, the two of them being united, he who was born of the Father in the divinity, [and] of the holy virgin in the humanity, for there was a union of the two natures.
And we ought to say unto thee, Acacius, that I have confessed in one Christ two natures without confusion. By one nature on the one hand, that is, [by that] of the divinity, he was born of God the Father; by the other, on the other hand, that is, [by that] of the humanity, [he was bom] of the holy virgin. How then canst thou name her 'Mother of God', when thou hast confessed that he was not born of her? For if thou hast said that in the divinity he was born of the holy virgin, she would be called the mother of God after the nature which was born of her; but if thou, even thou, confessest that |297 he was not born [of her] in the divinity, in / that thou confessest that he was not born, how dost thou confess her Mother of God? How canst thou accuse him of saying two Christs, [who said that] which thou also hast confessed----that Christ is two natures, one nature of the divinity which is called Christ and one nature of the humanity which also thou namest Christ? Either thou dost confess two Christs owing to the diversity of the natures, one indeed the humanity which was born of the holy virgin, but the other God the Word who was born of God the Father, or thou dost say, as the other says, 'one in the union' and nothing more? And on account of what hast thou brought thyself to all this and brought the others with thee to do these things against a man who was saying this?
Cyril. But God the Word who [proceeded] from the Father is not one son, while he again who [was born] of the holy virgin is not another, as was supposed by Nestorius, but one and the same. For it is made clear and explained afterwards; for he cites 153 that which signifies God whole and man whole, him who was born of the Father before the worlds in his divinity but in the last days for us and for our salvation of the Virgin Mary in the humanity, the same consubstantial with the Father in the divinity, the same consubstantial with us in the humanity. Therefore they divide not the one Son and Christ and Lord / and Jesus, but they say that the same existed before the worlds and in the last times; but [it is] known that he who [has proceeded] from God the Father [is] God and [he who was born] of a woman in the humanity [is] man. . . . How then is he conceived consubstantial with us in the humanity since he was born of the Father, I have said, in the divinity, if the same is not conceived and called God and man? |298
Now if it [is true] that the one ousia of God the Word, which was born of the Father and of the Virgin Mary, [was] the same, for what reason dost thou confess two natures in the union and not [that] there was one belonging to the same who was born of the Father and of the Mother, as thou wantest and even constrainest us to suppose and to let thee also suppose? But they that have accepted this confession do not allow thee to lead them whither thou wantest, but constrain thee and induce thee as a deceiver to abide by the things which thou hast confessed with them.
For thou hast confessed the union of the divinity and of the humanity, since of two natures was the union. Two thou hast confessed, and thou sayest that the others have confessed one. Thy cunning [is] great: so thou hast confessed the union, and thou sayest that the others have confessed the division of the union, so that the one same ousia is divided into the two ousias, unlike one another, of the divinity and of the humanity, so that the one ousia, which is divisible into ousias unlike and of another kind / one from another, is consubstantial. For one ousia cannot be conceived as two ousias unlike and of another kind one from another, but which are alike [in the sense] that they are consubstantial one with another, as is that likeness. In which nature then is the Son consubstantial with the Father and in which [is he] consubstantial with us? For the ousia of God the Father and our own ousia are alien one to another. He therefore too would be alien unto his being and would be of two natures alien one to another. How then is it to be conceived that he is consubstantial with us ourselves in the humanity when he exists not in the ousia of the humanity? But how is he consubstantial with the Father, when he exists not in his ousia? Or how [is] the same in ousia of the ousia of God the Father and of our ousia? And [how] is it the same ousia? And [how] are two ousias alien one to |299 another one, so that each one of the ousias both is and is conceived in one ousia? But if this is impossible, [it is] also inacceptable that it should be conceived in the word of truth. It is not a nature [which is] in its nature of the ousia of the Father and of the ousia of the humanity, so as to become consubstantial with both of them; but in the ousia of God the Word only is he consubstantial with God the Father, whereas he is consubstantial with us ourselves in our ousia; and the same both is and is named one, who [is formed] of the nature of God and of our nature, in the prosôpon indeed of the union. For in the natures he is naturally / distinct according to the diversity of the natures which participate not in one another according to the doctrine of the ousias. And thou canst not unloose aught that thou hast bound,----to wit, the union of two 'natures; and two natures are not one nature'. For a union of the diversity of the diverse natures and not of the diversities of its very own ousia is conceived and said to have taken place; for the coming into being appertains to the one ousia, while the union is the combination of the ousias.
Cyril. But these things appear not so unto Nestorius, but [it seems to him] rather that the aim thereof tends in the opposite direction in every respect. He used then to say in the church when interpreting [these doctrines]: 'For this reason too God the Word is named Christ, because he has adhesion constantly with Christ'; and again: 'He has preserved the adhesion of the natures without confusion, and we confess God in man; we honour the man who is adored with God Almighty through the adhesion of the divinity.' Seest thou how far [from the truth] his word [is]? For it is full of great impiety; for he says that God the Word was named Christ singly, but that he has adhesion constantly with Christ. Does he not in effect speak of two Christs? Does he not confess that he honours the man who is adored with God? Do these things then, O our brother, seem to be akin to those which have been said by the former? 154 They have not even any coherence / with one another; for he on the one hand predicates two natures in operation in him, they on the other hand one; that is, they confess |300 and adore one Son and Lord and God, the same [proceeding] from the Father in the divinity and from the holy Virgin in the humanity; [we] say that a union indeed of two natures took place but we confess clearly one Christ and one Son and one Lord.
Nestorius. We ought to say unto thee, wise Acacius: why deceivest thou us? For thou hast confessed the union of two natures unlike one another and, wherein thou accusest Nestorius himself, thou seemest to confess [the same] with him, although thou sayest not that two Christs are predicated; for Nestorius too seems not to have confessed two Christs. But, after what thou spreadest abroad concerning him, that he says so, though he confesses not that two Christs are predicated therein, thou too seemest to predicate two Christs; for thou speakest not of Christ in one nature but [sayest] that he is in two natures whole in their ousia, unlike one another; Christ exists in the divinity and in the humanity; for in that he is two, the two natures also are named two Christs by one and the same name of Christ. For when two natures, unlike one another, are named by the same name, they are called two / by homonymy. But thou sayest one in the union; this also Nestorius says: that two natures [result in] one Christ, which are self-sustaining in their natures and need not, for the support of one another, that they should be supported by |301 the union; but they have established the dispensation on our behalf. The divinity [is] not in need of the humanity, nor yet [is] the humanity in need of the divinity, because in their own nature they need naught. For it was not for the very divinity through the union with the humanity to become God without need, nor again was it for the very humanity to become man through the union with the divinity; but [it was that] from [its] creation by divinity in [its] ordinary nature, although the union also was its as a result of its creation. For the union of the divinity came about not for the completion of the one ousia but for the prosôpon of the dispensation on our behalf. Nor again [as to] the divinity, was the humanity for the completion of its nature, but for the prosôpon of the dispensation on our behalf. For they uphold the prosôpon of one another, and for this reason there makes use of the prosôpon of the one nature the other nature, as of its own. Both of them make not use of the one and the other in common nor of composition for the completion of the nature, as the soul and the body [are composed] for [the formation of] the nature of man, but there makes use of the prosôpon of the one nature the other nature [as though it were] the same as its own. And for this reason the divinity also on account of the union is named Christ after the humanity which was anointed, and there exists / of two natures, of divinity and of humanity, Christ, one Son, one Lord; through the union of the divinity and of the humanity the same is Son and Lord and God. For 155 the things which have been called one in the union----a 'one' which exists united in nature----are indeed not predicated distinctly as things which are predicated by homonymy; yet, if thou dividest them, the 'one' is not divisible with them. For in its own nature the ousias are together and it is named after both of them owing to its own nature. Thus [it is] that the soul and the body which are united are named one living being and are not called two living beings. The soul and the body [constitute] one living being, because the |302 body lives not in its own life but in the union with the soul; and for this reason, if they are divided, the life is not divided but there is [left] only [that] of the soul, since both of them are named after its nature one living being.
Let it then be assumed for demonstration also concerning the divinity and the humanity that there is one prosôpon in two prosôpa; that cannot be conceived [as] one without the union, but man [is] man and God God. Both of them [are] one Son, one Lord. For when they are distinguished it is not theirs that the latter should be called that which the former is; for this reason thou too confessest the union of two natures, and of two natures unlike one another; of the divinity and of the humanity, / complete divinity and complete humanity, one Christ, one Son, one Lord. Or callest thou perhaps one nature Christ and [sayest] not one Christ in two natures, and the union without confusion of the natures is superfluous? But if two natures are one Christ, thou sayest, as Nestorius, in [respect to] the union, that one is named after the other. And why hurriest thou outwardly to pursue the others, when thou makest [thy] defence on their behalf and the two [opinions] are found in thee, the former and the opposite thereof? ....
And further he 156 shows the same things:
We suppose not in fact, as some of the former heretics have supposed, [that] the Word which [proceeded] from God took a nature, that is, [that] he constructed by means of the divinity a bodily frame for him, but, in following everywhere the Divine Scriptures, we affirm that he took [it] from the holy Virgin. Therefore, as we accept in the understanding those things whereof was [formed] only one Son and Lord and Jesus Christ, we predicate two natures united; but after the union, as though the diversity of two natures was now abolished by him, we confess [that] the nature of the Son is of one, but that he was made man and was made flesh; but if it were said that he who was made flesh or was made man was God the Word, [all] supposition / of change would be far removed; for he remained that which he was; but let the union also without confusion be confessed by us. |303
Nestorius. Thou confessest then those things whereof Christ is [formed], that is, the divinity and the humanity, and thou hast confessed a diversity in the ousias and that they have remained without confusion; but they have remained without confusion, as are the natures; even then in the union they have remained thus. How therefore do the natures remain without confusion, since they remain not after the union such as they are in nature?....'For after the union the distinction between the two is suppressed, and we confess that the nature of the Son is one.' For if the natures have not remained even in the union such as they were, but their own distinctions, whereby they were conceived as two, though remaining even in the union without confusion, are suppressed, there comes about a confusion, a confusion of change and of transformation, a coming to be in one nature. How then seems it unto thee? 'The union which was united in the natures took place without confusion.' Two then [are] they whereof was [formed] only one son and Lord and Jesus Christ, two also in the union; and the natural diversities, wherein they are conceived as two, are not suppressed, since the one is not the other in ousia nor the other the one in ousia. For surely thou conceivest not so, but sayest not as / thou conceivest. How then in thy thoughts acceptest thou two [natures] whereof Christ is [formed], whereas after the union thou predicatest one nature of the Son as though suppressing the distinction between two natures? Above thou sayest that those whereof one son is [formed] are two and later that the nature of the Son is one, as though the union of the natures resulted in the nature and not in the prosôpon. For the natures of both of them which have been united have become one. For this union, being variable and changeable, |304 in that it takes place for the nature and for the completion of the nature, is not of two complete but of two incomplete natures.
For every complete nature has not need of another nature that it may be and live, in that it has in it and has received [its whole] definition that it may be. For in a natural composition it seems that neither of those natures whereof it is [formed] is complete but they need one another that they may be and subsist. Even as the body has need of the soul that it may live, for it lives not of itself, and the soul has need of the body that it may perceive, whereas otherwise it would see, even though it had not eyes and would hear, even though the hearing were injured, so too with the other senses. How then dost thou predicate one nature of two whole natures, when the humanity is complete, needing not the union of the divinity to become man? / For it is its to become man not through the union with the divinity but by the creative power of God, who has brought into being all that which existed not, although the union took place with its very creation.157 Nor was the divinity in need of the humanity as if for the knowledge or as if for the perceiving of human [perceptions]. How then resulted the union of the Son in one nature? Suppress then entirely the [theories pointing to] two natures and there will be room for that of one nature without soul, as Arius said, and without intelligence, as Apollinarius said; and thou attributest unto man one nature outside all the natures and afterwards [thou sayest] this, that God the Word is not without need, because he is not a complete nature in that he needs the nature of man. But now in the same [place] thou sayest the opposite to all this: both [that there are] two whole natures whereof the Son is [formed] and that the union resulted in one nature of the Son. Nor has it therefore been conceived that there is one Son [formed] of these [two natures], and thou hast spoken of two natures united, and further [thou hast said] that [they resulted] in one nature of the Son and dost abolish that of the flesh. And for this reason after the union thou suppressest the |305 distinction between two [natures] in that the nature of the flesh has thereby been suppressed either because it has been corrupted or because it has been changed, and thou believest, however, in 'one nature of the Son who was made man and was found in body'. Whom and what, whereof one Son is [formed], callest thou the nature? And what is / the one nature of the Son? But the things which are united from two natures into one nature are conceived [to be composed] of both the natures which have been united in like manner as [something] composed of simple [elements]. Therefore the one nature of the Son is composite, and for this reason thou hast said: '[He is] furnished however with a bodily frame.' How further will the distinction between both be suppressed, that he 158 may not be conceived [to be] with the flesh? And thou speakest of two and [sayest] that it is not right that they should be conceived [to be] two after the union, as though indeed suppressing the distinction between both. And thou speakest of one nature of the Son and attributest unto them the necessity of being conceived as two, in that thou sayest that he was furnished with a bodily frame after the union; for he was furnished with flesh in the flesh which was by nature flesh. Thou attributest therefore two natures unto the Lord after the union, one the nature of the Son and one the flesh wherein he was furnished with flesh; or before the union two distinct natures, of the divinity of the Son and of his humanity, are to be conceived, and then they were combined for the suppression of one nature. And thus too, neither before the union nor after the union, is the Son conceived as [formed] of two natures; or thou sayest this, that they continue disunited and undistinguished, and the nature of the Son remains alone [apart] from the nature of the humanity, as though suppressing the distinction between both; and thou castest before Acacius himself, as before a dog that is excited and infuriated against thee, the [view] that after the union the distinction between both is suppressed, and thou sayest that we believe that the ousia of the Son is / one; and again [thou proclaimest] before the Easterns that he however was furnished with flesh, in order |306 that they might not be excited. Thou hast also said this, that the union took place entirely without confusion, and thou concedest unto every man as he requires.
Acacius.159 Yet verily and often indeed opponents will say: 'Lo! evidently these, in making confession of the correct faith, name two natures and distinguish the sayings of the theologians according to the diversity of the natures. And lo! how is it that these [theories] are not opposed to thine, for thou art not persuaded that [one ought] to divide the sayings unto two prosôpa or hypostases?'
Cyril. But, O wise man, I say that there is written in the Articles that that man who divides the sayings between two prosôpa or hypostases, some of them as if to the man who is known outside God the Word and others of them as though suitable to God the Word alone, who [proceeded] from God the Father, should be condemned. But we have not in any way abolished the diversity of the sayings, although we have ruled out the [phrase] 'we divide them' as [dividing] the Son alone, the Word from the Father, and again as [dividing] the man known [as] the Son of a woman. For truly the nature of the Word is one, for we know that he was found in body and was made man.
Nestorius. By reasoning and the train of examination did he persuade / Acacius of these words and did he not lead him, as one that was bridled, to follow whithersoever he required? For he said that there was a union of two natures whence there was [formed] only one Son and Lord and Jesus Christ and [that] the union took place entirely without confusion. How then is the nature of the Son one, that which thou hast |307 said is two natures----that is, [is] in the natures, [being] that which is of them. For there is not a nature which should be two natures whence there should be one and not two. 'But', [thou wilt say], 'through the union it is his to become one, and yet he became not one through the union, and [it is right] that we should conceive two without confusion with the diversity of the ousias and further that we should not conceive two but one' . . . . Who understands confusion without confusion, and [how] to divide the sayings unto two prosôpa or hypostases? These things need much examination, an exact examination of identity and of difference. 'If one divides the sayings unto two prosôpa or hypostases,' [he says], and again: 'Nor [is it right] that we should abolish the diversity of the sayings even in any single way.' He who says that it is not right to divide the sayings into the prosôpa or the hypostases further abolishes not even in any way the two diversities of the sayings. For in what way is it by no means right to divide the sayings unto the prosôpa or the hypostases? From / two thou keepest us afar off; how therefore hast thou not even in any single way abolished the diversity of the sayings? 'Although we have ruled out the [phrase] "we divide them", as [dividing] the Son alone, the Word from the Father, and again as [dividing] the man who alone is known as the son of a woman. For even truly the nature of the Word is one, for we know that he was found in body and was made man.' In what way then hast thou not suppressed the diversity of the sayings; whereas thou sayest that the eternal Son is by nature God the Word? Say [that] thou givest [unto him] also the flesh even in union and not in remoteness, what is the diversity of the sayings which thou hast not abolished? For the diversities are [those] of the operations which are set before us and these diversities are based on the sayings; for when there is no diversity [in the operations], the diversity also of the sayings is suppressed. Thou confessest two natures of one Christ and Son, even two diversities, and thou makest the diversities of the sayings in accordance with the diversities of the natures and thou dividest also the sayings of the theologians. How hast thou joined |308 together the very things which are divided, thou that acceptest with a joyful voice him that divides them? How confessest thou two natures of the union of one Christ and one Son and again one nature of God the Word? For thou hast said that we confess / one nature of God the Word and not two united. Thou sayest one Son, because thou predicatest of the Son two natures without distinction, and thou attributest again one nature only nor yet two without distinction unto God the Word and sayest that he is the Son found in flesh and yet that he is not in the flesh. But, lest thou shouldest predicate one Son of God the Word in one nature found in flesh and another Son of two natures united, of one Christ and one Son thou darest not predicate one nature found in flesh, but thou confidently determinest the one nature of God the Word found in flesh. Why then? There is one Son, God the Word, [with] one nature and another Son with two natures whence proceeded the one Son alone! For the nature of God is not said to be two natures but one nature, in such wise that thou callest Christ one Son in two natures. And thou sayest all these things, [to wit,] both two natures of one Son and one nature of God the Word; and thou speakest of the Son [as formed] of two natures unlike one another and further removest [one of them] from him and attributest one nature alone unto him; and thou removest one [from him]----I mean the humanity----so that it becomes not the Son in the union, and thou art constrained by the word 'natures' to distinguish the properties of each one of them, whether thou art willing or whether thou art unwilling. / For for what reason hast thou spoken of one nature of God the Word and not of two united? And further [for what reason] hast thou dared to say that there is only one God the Word [resulting] therefrom, as thou hast said that only one Son [results] therefrom? Let it be, as thou hast said, that two natures, which men would call united, are accepted in imagination; say thus also of God the Word, that thereby only one God the Word is two. I indeed predicate two natures united, following the Divine Scriptures and the divine teachings, and [I say] that God the Word is indicative of the nature but the Son of the prosôpon, but [that] he is one [and] the |309 same God the Word. Thus [it is] that God is indicative of the nature but the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit of the prosôpa. For this reason the divinity indeed [is] one but the prosôpa three; for God is Father and God Son and God Holy Spirit. The prosôpa are not without ousia. But again in the same way----thus also concerning Christ [there are] two natures, one of God the Word and one of the humanity, but one prosôpon of the Son, that whereof the humanity also likewise makes use, and one [of] the man, that whereof the divinity also likewise makes use. It is not of the nature but of the natural prosôpon of the natures [whereof they make use]; for even in the union the natures remain without confusion. Neither [are] the natures without prosôpa nor yet the prosôpa without ousia, nor as in the nature of an animal has the union resulted in the completion of one animal; it has derived from both of them / the [power] to become complete. Yet of two complete natures the one is predicated of the other by appropriation and not in the nature, but in the natural prosôpon of the natures and not in another nature. That which is another is [so] called by nature; for by the nature the Son of God [is] God the Word, in such wise that the humanity also makes use of the same through the appropriation of the union and not through the nature. For Christ the same yesterday and to-day and for ever [is] the same in prosôpon, not in the same nature.
Why congratulatest thou thyself and confessest that the humanity and the divinity are not the very same in ousia or, as thou sayest, in natural quality,----if it is right to call the quality nature? And further thou confessest that the nature of the divinity and [that] of the humanity are united without confusion; thou understandest two which are unconfused and which are combined with one another. Thou confessest also [these qualities] in respect to the natures because they remain without confusion. And by the nature of each one of them they are conceived as one, though thou confessest not by the prosôpon but by the nature. So thou suppressest both that are confessed without confusion by thee; for thou confessest |310 that both were united without confusion, and further two are not to be conceived----as though suppressing the distinction of both----as that which [is] one. If the inconfusion of both the ousias had not been in thy mind, how then sayest thou of that which was combined in one ousia / that one ought to confess this union [to have taken place] without confusion? And again let us suppose that those [natures] which have been united without confusion have not been united without confusion or, like the [view] which thou hast said, that the union took place for [the forming of] one Son from two natures. But after the union thou removest the humanity from the union which [resulted] in one Son, and it has been put far away from the union which [resulted] in one Son and is henceforth conceived apart from the union. But this ousia of the Son is conceived uniquely, nor yet are those [natures] whereof he is [formed] Son, but only one nature, conceived in the Son. Yet thou sayest that there is only one nature.
[Cyril.] But when the manner of the Incarnation is investigated, the human intelligence sees inevitably two things which [are united] ineffably and inconfusedly in one union; yet it distinguishes not entirely what has been united but believes that of two there is [formed] one, both God and Son and Lord and Christ.
Wherein sayest thou 'one'? That they have been united in the prosôpon of the union of the natures? Thus then the human intelligence sees those things which are united without confusion; but they are without confusion in their own natures and in their own ousia and thus they remain and are conceived. The one is not conceived as the other in ousia nor the other as the one. For in the matter of the ousias there is a distinction in the nature of each one of them: it both is conceived and exists. But in the combination of the natures there exists / in the same one prosôpon without distinction and without division. |311 In the natural prosôpon [there is] one nature, making use likewise of the prosôpon of another nature. Thus therefore the natures which have been united are without confusion and are never to be divided in the same, in that in the matter of the natures they are conceived in the distinction of their own natures.
Cyril. But the wrong opinion of Nestorius is [something] entirely other than this; for he proves that he confesses that the Word which is God was found in body and was made man; but, knowing not the force of 'was found in body' he names two natures and distinguishes them from one another, setting God solely by himself and likewise the man by himself, who has been joined unto God in proximity and in equality of honour only, and in authority. For thus he says: 'God is not distinct from him that is visible. For this reason I distinguish not the honour of him that is not distinguished; I distinguish the natures and I unite the adoration. . . .' But these our brothers in Antioch, accepting simply, as though in imagination only, the things whereof Christ is known [to have been formed], predicate the diversity of the natures----because the divinity and the humanity are not one thing in natural quality, as I have said,----as well as one Son and Christ and Lord; and, as indeed he is truly one, they say that his prosôpon / is one but distinguish not in any way at all the things which have been united.
Nestorius. And verily, if this had been truly [said], thou too wouldest have been more confident in this word, while I should not be able to feel confident of being known thereby, but, as thou sayest, I should be making use [thereof] in schema, and thou oughtest to have confuted me before all the Council; |312 nor, when I had required [aught] of thee by request, oughtest thou to have kept it dark but to have waited for the whole Council; and again, when I was summoned to the Council, thou oughtest not to have declined. For how often hast thou not done this very thing and wast refuting my wrong opinion, whereas I was not able to make use of any defence. For he who is confuted of imagining the contrary of that to which he clings in hypocrisy condemns with all condemnations the wrongness of his opinion. Yet perhaps it is not so, but the opposite. Whence knowest thou that I confess that God the Word was made flesh and was made man and yet say not that he was made flesh and was made man? For he who was made flesh was made flesh in the flesh, while he who says that they 160 are divided and distinct 161 from one another does not even confess the incarnation at all; unless perhaps he confesses / the [view] that he who was not made flesh was made flesh. For how are those things made flesh which are apart from one another without being united? If therefore I confess two natures and that he was made flesh, from what [cause] have I been supposed to say that the natures are distinct and far removed from one another, without conceding the being made flesh and the being made man of God the Word?
For thou hast said that I say: 'God is not distinct from him that is visible. For this reason [as regards] him that is not distinct I distinguish not the honour.' How does he who says that God is not distinct from him that is visible distinguish [the two]? For thou hast said that thou distinguishest not him that is visible from him that is invisible, and also that the honour of God is not to be distinguished; nor, if I distinguish not God himself from him that is visible because he is not to |313 be distinguished, do I distinguish also the honour. 'Who', hast thou said, 'is not to be distinguished? And from whom is he not to be distinguished? And for this reason I distinguish not even the honour of him that is not to be distinguished.' But I say that I distinguish the natures but unite the adoration. Just as thou too hast accepted the union of the natures without confusion either in truth or in schema, thou distinguishest also the natures in the matter of the ousias whereof Christ is conceived [to have been formed], whether thou art willing or whether thou art unwilling. Thou predicatest also the diversity and [admittest] / that the divinity and the humanity are not the same in natural quality, as thou sayest. For he that says that the divinity and the humanity are not the same makes by a natural diversity the distinction that the one is not the other nor the other the one. But the natural diversity is a distinction. The distinction therefore in the diversity and in the ousia of the natures is one thing and the distinction in the distance apart of the ousias, which have been combined and united in the combination, is another thing. Therefore I have predicated the union of the combination of the natures, of the divinity and of the humanity without distinction, [saying] that God is not distinct from him that is visible; yet I have said that according to the union without confusion the natures are distinguished by a natural diversity, but I have called the adoration of those [natures], which are thus not to be distinguished and are to be distinguished, one, seeing indeed that they have been combined in one prosôpon and not in one ousia nor in one nature, because the union of the natures took not place in confusion; nor further [did there take place] a confusion for the completion of one nature, because the union resulted not from incomplete but from two whole natures.162
For every union which results by a natural composition in the completion of the nature results from incomplete natures, but that which [results] from complete natures results in one |314 prosôpon and subsists therein. For God the Word made not use of a bodily frame without soul nor / of a soul without will and without mind, nor of a bodily frame and of a soul instead of a soul and an intelligence. But thereby is distinguished the church of the Arians and [that] of the Apollinarians, which accepts not two whole natures which have been united. Neither do I distinguish the natures which have been united by abstraction and by isolation from one another, nor do I speak of an adhesion through love and through proximity, as though it were between those which are far apart [and] those united by love and not in the ousias; nor again do I speak of a union in equality of honour and in authority but of the natures and of whole natures, and in the combination of the ousias I concede a union without confusion; but in respect to one honour and to one authority I predicate the union of the natures and not of the honour and of the authority. Otherwise, prove [it] by what I have said: 'God is not to be distinguished from him that is visible; for this reason I distinguish not the honour of him who is not distinguished.' Where then have I said in these things that I distinguish the natures from one another and speak of God the Word by himself and the man by himself, [saying] that they adhered together by proximity of love and by equality of honour or by authority? For, I have said, I distinguish not God from him that is visible. [I spoke] not of the proximity nor the equality of honour nor of the equality, but I said that I distinguish not God the Word himself in his nature from the visible nature, and by reason of God who is not to be distinguished I distinguish not even the honour; for he is one thing and his honour is another, and his ousia is another / and whatsoever the ousia is is another. But, although I have said that I distinguish the natures and unite the adoration, I have not said that I distinguish the natures from one another by a distinction of distance, as thou accusest me in thy calumniation.163
For if there had not been [any] other manner of distinction between natures than that only of distance apart, thou wouldest |315 have well found fault with me for distinguishing them thus. But if there were many others, and especially [if], in the matter of the natures which all our inquiry concerns, the union of which natures, whereof I have spoken, took place without confusion or change, how is this to thy thinking? And [yet] thou examinest up and down, as though I [had] said in this sense that I distinguish the natures? 164
And thou bringest [word] that the others 165 divide not even in a single way the [natures] which have been united. In the first place thou wast the first to say that they are distinguished. But these our brothers in Antioch accepting simply, as indeed only by reflection, the things whereof Christ is known [to have been formed], predicate the diversity of the natures, because the divinity and the humanity are not any one thing in natural quality, as I have said, but one Son and Christ and Lord; and as indeed he is truly one, so we say that the prosôpon is one. But thou sayest that they divide not even in a single way the natures which have been united, while they have spoken of the diversity, / [saying] that the natural quality of the divinity and the humanity is not the same; and thou sayest that we ought not to divide the diversity, nor is it that there are the same things in nature, and therein thou predicatest the diversity. For in every way thou makest distinction, saying that there is a diversity and that the divinity and the humanity are not the same in natural quality; yet [thou makest the distinction] not in distance apart but in the matter of the natures, nor by means of a distinction consisting in a differentiation of functions, but with an obvious meaning. How then do they not distinguish even in a single way those things whereof Christ is united and predicate the diversities in the ousia?
And further thou sayest:
They accept not even the distinction of the natures, as it seems to have been imagined by the exponent of [these] paltry inventions, but they define and distinguish only the sayings concerning our Lord, saying that [some] of them are |316 suitable not to the Word which [proceeded] from God the Father as to the Son solely and [others] also of them again to another Son who [was born] of a woman, but [some] of them to his divinity and [others] of them again to his humanity; for the same indeed is God and man; but they say that there are also others which [are] common, because they regard both of them----I mean, [the natures of] the divinity and of the humanity. . . .
I indeed suppose that he does not even know what he says: however, what I suppose [is] that he says the opposite / of whatever he says in schema that he confesses with the Easterns. For, if there were not a distinction between the natures, how hast thou said that they have predicated a diversity of natures? And how are not the divinity and the humanity the same in natural quality, since they are divided in nature according to [their] diversity? For therein, if it is supposed of me that I predicate a natural distinction, it belies [me] not; they are not however [derived] from the exponents of [these] paltry inventions, for they are not my own inventions, but the apostolic faith and the teaching of the Fathers and thy own confession also, since thou art constrained and turnest it hither and thither that thou mayest say it without saying it.
And thou hast confessed that those whereof Christ is [formed] are two natures and [that they are] alien to one another in ousia: 'We do not conceive that God the Word has taken [aught] of his own, that is, divine nature and has constructed for him[self] a bodily frame, following everywhere the Divine Scriptures, since we affirm that he has taken [it] from the holy virgin. We accept as by reason those things whereof [there is formed] only one Son and Lord and Jesus Christ, confessing two natures which have been united.' And the natural distinction is not overlooked, for the indication of the natural distinction consists in their |317 being called two; but, in respect to the natures, they are called two, for there is a natural distinction between the natures whereby thou confessest two but [addest] that they are united without confusion; for this reason also [they are] two.
/ Thou sayest again some thing else to the contrary, that after the union [there is] one nature, because the distinction of the two, both of them his own, has already been abolished for him. Therein it is not [possible] for him to come to terms with the Easterns. Thou sayest however that there is even no indication of the distinction between the two, not, [that is], the distinction of the union but [that] for the diversity of the ousias. But thou, O wise man, with all thy wisdom dost even confess two after the union and determinest to confess that after the union there are no more two natures. For thou predicatest two natures united; it is evident that they are united before the union and not after the union. How then confessest thou two natures after the union and forbiddest us to confess two natures after the union? Which should we believe? The first or the second? Or thine? Since thou confessest with the Easterns who confess two natures, but Acacius does not, [saying] that it is not right to confess two natures but one after the union, because the distinction into two has already been suppressed. Thou concedest unto every man as he requires. ... 'But they accept not the natural distinction,166 but define and distinguish only the sayings concerning our Lord, saying that they are suitable, yet not saying that [they are suitable some] of them solely to the Word which [proceeded] from God the Father as to a Son and [others] of them again as to another Son / who [was born] of a woman, but [some] of them to his divinity and [others] of them again to his humanity, for the same is God and man.' .... And me, lying, he calumniates as though predicating two Sons; and those things also which he has cited against me therefrom as well as from the letters and from these interpretations |318 which have been excerpted by him proclaim [it]. But [as regards] his having said that now they accept not the natural distinction 167 but define and distinguish only the sayings concerning our Lord, let us see what those that [are come] from the East have said, and in what way he makes use of these things: 'As for the sayings of the Gospels concerning our Lord, we know certain theologians who make [some] of them that [are] common relative to one prosôpon.' Hearest thou how they have confessed? 'Relative to one prosopon' and not to one nature. Why changest thou their confession, when they make those that [are] common, as thou hast said, relative to one common prosôpon? And thou makest naught common.168 Whose do they make those that [are] common, since there is not [anything] common except [in the eyes of] those who make use of one prosôpon? Predicate then a common prosôpon and predicate of one prosôpon the things that they make common. It [is this that] makes his one prosôpon common; for that which is made of things [that are] opposite in anything is made common, so that it is therefore not sole but / common. As then a serpent receives a wound and coils itself up over the wound and conceals the wound itself and unwinds itself anew out of pain and shows it, though unwilling, thus thou also darest to hide what thou hast confessed and afterwards hast confessed, though unwilling, the things which have been confessed.
For hear thine own confession; for they have required thee to confess with them the things which thou hast written.
But as regards the sayings of the Gospels and of the Apostles spoken concerning one Lord, we know that certain theologians make [some] of the things which are common relative to one prosôpon but divide [others] of them as between two natures; those which are suitable unto God they attribute unto the divinity of Christ and [others] of them, and those them that are contemptible, unto the humanity.....169 |319
These things thou hast confessed [in such wise as] to imagine and to teach [them]; why art thou now keeping [them] dark? For thou hast said that the things which are distinct [are] relative to two natures and not to one nature, nor are the divinity and the humanity the same, but the [attributes] of the divinity indeed [belong] unto the divinity and [those] of the humanity unto the humanity. They call not by two names one nature, which is distinct only in the saying and not in the ousia, as thou imaginest. For thou sayest that the diversities of the sayings are not suppressed but they have indicated in saying the natures and the distinction / of the natures. And thou confessest [so far as] to say that there is a distinction of the natures; for thou hast said that they divide the sayings as [relative] to two natures, [attributing 'some] of them, those which are suitable unto God, unto the divinity of Christ' and not unto the same ousia in respect to the humanity but to the nature in respect to the divinity. For they call not the divinity two natures but one nature and the humanity one nature; for two natures are not named after one nature nor one nature after two natures. For concerning two natures they have said that a distinction should be made and not concerning two sayings which indicate one nature but which indicate two natures owing to the distinction of the diversity of the ousia of the two natures.170 'Those indeed which are made common [they attribute] as unto one prosôpon, but others of them they divide as between two natures, [attributing] those which are suitable unto God unto the divinity of Christ.' The common prosôpon of the two natures [is] Christ, the same prosôpon whereof the natures make use even likewise, that wherein and whereby both of them, the divinity and the humanity, are known in ousia without distinction and with distinction. Neither the divinity nor the humanity exists [by itself] in the common prosôpon, |320 for it appertains to both the natures, so that therein and thereby both the natures are known; for it is one in the ousias. For even the ousia of the humanity similarly makes use of the prosôpon of the ousia of the divinity and not of the ousia, and the ousia of the divinity / makes use of the prosôpon of the humanity similarly, and not of the ousia, as thou pretendest. And they 'predicate not [some] of them solely of the Word who [proceeded] from the Father as of a Son but [others] of them again of another Son who [was born] of a woman; but [they attribute some] of them unto his divinity but [others] of them again unto his humanity; for the same indeed is God and man' . . . .
If thou sayest 'solely' in [the sense of] remoteness apart of the distinction of the natures, thou speakest not unto those who confess that the natures are united and that they have been united in one prosôpon and are two natures and indicate therein and thereby two natures which are known [as such]. But if thou callest him [one and] the same in nature so that the divinity, which was born of God the Father is one nature and likewise again [that which was born] of the woman, thou sayest that God is distinct from man only in the saying and [is] the same in ousia. And thou speakest outside thine own confession and further art hastening to wage war with thyself. For how hast thou confessed with the Easterns the division into two natures, [attributing some] indeed of the sayings which are suitable unto the divinity unto the divinity of Christ, and those which are contemptible unto the humanity of Christ, who is by nature the humanity and by nature the divinity. [They said] not unto the divinity of God the Word nor yet unto the humanity of God the Word, for God the Word is not two natures nor [formed] of two natures / or two names or many-named, [bearing names] which are the names of the one ousia itself. And (supposing that] the divinity is not conceived in the nature but only in the saying, wherefore embroilest thou with thyself Acacius, thy loving and intimate [friend], whom thou oughtest to have let go, whatever |321 happened, who only in the simple term and in the saying agrees with thee, who dividest the natures not in their ousias, but in respect to the sayings which subsisted only in the imagination as saying, which indicate no [real] definition and no [real] nature? In nature on the one hand and in the ousias they [would have] had no distinction because also they are not ousias; only in the sayings of the natures on the other hand they [would have] had a distinction, because therein it is theirs to subsist.
Thus also of Christ 171 thou hast predicated two natures, but thou sayest that the distinction between them is not in the natures and in the ousias but only in the understanding and in the sayings. 'Our brothers in Antioch call those things whereby Christ is known a diversity of natures, as though merely accepting [them] in idea alone, because the divinity and the humanity are not one thing, as I have said, in natural quality' . . . . Thou hast said in quality and not in ousia. But the quality, however, is not the nature of the ousia but either the schema of the ousia or of the nature or of [that which is] not ousia or a view in mere idea 172 only expressed concerning the natures. [As for] this quality, it has not the natural / diversity of the natures but a diversity of the natures without ousia; yet thou sayest that they exist only in the sayings, in reflection3 about the natures, without ousias. And this he says, that they call the things whereby Christ is known the diversity of the natures, as though merely accepting them in idea alone, because the divinity and the humanity are not one thing in natural quality, as I have |322 said. . . . But they of Antioch are not content either to say this or to hear any man that says [it]; but they say that, touching the sayings of the Gospels concerning Christ our Lord, we know certain divines who make [some] of the things that are common relative to one prosôpon, but divide [others] of them between two natures. . . . They have said that they surely divide; they have predicated the sayings of two natures and accept not the diversity merely in idea alone. It is not by sayings but by sayings concerning two natures that they draw a distinction in the matter of the ousias. Two natures, which are to be distinguished by the sayings indicative of them, are distinguished. The natures are not without hypostases, nor in idea without the hypostases of the natures do they constitute [them] by sayings in reflection, but by reflection upon the natures with the ousias, if not upon the ousias and the natures, they establish the ideas and the natures.
For the one is very distinct from the other; for the one says that they accept merely in idea alone the sayings about the diversities of the natures / and accepts not the idea of the natures with the ousias, but [says that] they are without hypostases and not subsisting, [and that] their origin indeed is from reflection and [that] they are whole in [its] wholeness. The other says that the idea and the sayings about the natures are indicative of the ousias both at the beginning in the idea and [afterwards] in the natures and in the ousias, in such wise that there are three kinds arising out of the nature of the ousias which are required of him who considers: the ousia itself and the idea of the ousia and the saying indicative of the idea. But whoever says that they [are] merely in idea alone, says two kinds [of things]: merely the idea and its own saying. For this reason he attributes the diversity to the idea alone of the nature and not to the ousia, but to a quality [resting] upon an illusion and upon a supposition of the nature, upon a schema of the nature and not upon the ousia of the nature. For [as to] the quality of the nature and the schema as well as the appearance of the ousia, all these things indeed he deduces and infers that it 173 is without ousia. Who would |323 take account of one who makes use of divine things so disdainfully? He has not one pure and confident idea and he reckons everything in this way and surely makes sport of those who are distressed in heart and [who] are zealous to learn the truth.174 And he is like unto Origen who says everything so that he may be accepted of every one, laying up favour with every one in whatever / he says, and persuades all [men]; [it is] for these things that he is hated of every one, because he turns about and suppresses the things which he has prepared by means of the opposite. For he wants every one to persist in whatever things please any one, and whoever changes them as an enemy is as the enemy of every one. And they rejoice not and are [not] delighted at the things which they have prepared [so much] as contrariwise they surely blush at the very things which they have prepared. The others 175 rejoice not at the things which delight him, for they suppose that they are outside the truth. But he makes [his] defence against those who have exalted themselves against him as against an enemy of the truth, namely on behalf of the faith of the Easterns, and he has not kept their own defence, such as it is, without an admixture [of falsehood].
Cyril. For because the confederates of the impiety of Arius, in impiously adulterating the power of the truth, say that the Word which [proceeded] from God became indeed man but made use of a soulless body,----but they do this craftily, that, in distinguishing human sayings [as] his and proving to those whom they deceive that he was in a state of inferiority to the sublimity of the Father, they might say that he was [of] another nature than he----therefore the Easterns, fearing this that perhaps then the glory of the nature of God the Word might be made inferior by reason of the things which are humanly spoken on account of the incarnation with / the flesh, distinguish the sayings, not dividing the one Son and Lord into two prosôpa, as I have said, but distinguishing [some] of them indeed [as belonging] unto his divinity and [others] of |324 them again [as belonging] unto his humanity, but all of them however [as belonging] unto one.
Nestorius. For if they attribute the divine and the human sayings unto the one nature of God the Word as diverse only in sayings, how do they escape from saying that the human [attributes] belong to the ousia of God the Word? But concerning the human [attributes] thou hast said that they [exist] not solely, [and] that they are indeed alien to the nature of the Father, seeing that he is one. For he is not another in nature in saying [alone], but also in ousia. For the ousia of man, as thou hast said, is the ousia of God: 'He is God and man.' [He is] then alien to the Father in every way whatsoever and he is inferior in everything according to thy own imagination, since thou imaginest that he is man also in the one same ousia. For drive not by force, thinking yourselves wise, though you are not so in the truth. They have distinguished the sayings, that they may be supposed to distinguish them as it were between two natures of ousias, and they are blamed for an attempt against God the Word [in saying] that these are imagined without ousia in respect to the natures in idea alone, as thou feignest to call the ones and the others. But the others distinguish these sayings / as though between two natures which exist by ousia, as in truth they exist. And they reject the calumny of the Arians against God the Word; for he who joins naturally the two [kinds of] sayings to the one nature and the same ousia, aids and abets the Arians in every way whatsoever, [teaching] that God the Word [is] alien to God the Father. |325
Cyril. This is not unknown to thy Saintliness, that, in casting upon my letters the faults of the idea[s] of Apollinarius, they have supposed also that I say [that] the holy body of Christ was without a soul and that there was a mixing and a confusion and an intermingling and a change of God the Word with the flesh, or that the flesh was transformed into the nature of the divinity so that naught was preserved pure and that [the flesh] was not what it is. But with this they have supposed that I was implicated also in the blasphemies of Arius in that I was not willing to acknowledge the diversity of the sayings and to say that [some] of them are suitable to God but [others] of them [are] human and suitable rather to the dispensation with the flesh. But thy Perfection bears witness for me unto the others that I am far from such things as these; but I ought however to defend myself before those who have been scandalized, and for this [reason] I have written unto thy Piety that I have never been reconciled to the [teaching] of the adherents of Arius or of the adherents of Apollinarius and that I say not that God the Word was converted into the flesh nor that the flesh was altered / into the nature of the divinity, because the Word of God is unchangeable and invariable and incomprehensible in all things. Nor again have I ever abolished the diversity of the sayings, but I know that our Lord speaks at the same time divinely and humanly, because he is at the same time God and man. |326
Nestorius. How hast thou said all these things which are supposed against me because thou wouldest not acknowledge the distinction between the sayings, when thou hast not abolished the diversity of the sayings? How art thou supposed, after what thou hast not abolished, to be reconciled to the [views] of Arius or to those of Apollinarius: that God the Word was changed into the flesh or the flesh was changed into the nature of the divinity? For in that thou makest [it thy] defence that some persons suspect thee of being unwilling to acknowledge the diversity of the sayings, by the very cause of [this] defence thou accusest thyself, as though thou hast given cause for them to suspect thee. But in those things, whereby thou defendest thyself, saying 'I have not abolished the diversity of the sayings', thou accusest thine own self both in the eyes of those who suspected thee, and especially in the eyes of Acacius, without any occasion for suspicion, as indeed he had accepted these very sayings which formerly thou usest not to accept. Either how knowest thou of thyself that I have not abolished the diversity of the sayings, while thou art supposed [to have done] / the contrary? Or how hast thou said that God the Word was not changed into the flesh and the flesh not into God the Word and [that] the diversity is only [one] of the sayings and not indeed of ousias, and that the ousia of the divinity persisted in its very nature and the ousia of the flesh persisted in the very ousia of the |327 flesh, if their ousias were not changed? Or how assigncst thou human and divine [attributes] unto the one nature of God the Word, in such wise that God the Word is in the same [ousia] God and man and was not changed into the flesh or into man? For it is impossible that both of them should be in the same ousia, when the one ousia is not as also the other [is], or perhaps becomes not existent. And is it what it became and is it changed into what it became, that is, into the ousia of man, or [is] the ousia of man [changed] into the ousia of God? If God and man are in one and the same ousia and in one nature, while the distinction into two is suppressed, how are the ousia of the flesh and the ousia of God in their being without being changed, since they are not to be conceived in the natures wherein they are without change? Yet if indeed they are conceived without change, how are they which are two not conceived [as] two? How is the distinction into two abolished and suppressed? How would these, even though it were a stone or a demon to whom naught that was pleasing was pleasant, not move and sink / to the perception of their baseness? 176 For he proclaims that the work is his own and, like those that are surely mad, that he does all things and says this and that and other things and all things and nothing. But he makes all men adhere, however, to absurdities such as these, though they understand neither what they are saying nor what they are affirming. For they have not one and the same idea concerning the same thing, but they deny and persist in those things which they deny that they confess, as though they are indeed the true faith and cling in [their] faith to the things which are not of the faith and believe not the things which are evident and are confessed by all men. For the faith is one thing and the nature is another; for he who says that the things which are evident and known in respect to the ousia are something else in respect to the faith, suppresses not the [properties residing] in the nature but seeks to persuade [men] of those which are not in the nature. But that which is in the nature is compulsorily 177 that which the prosopon is. For example, [in] what he says of the bread: 'It is my |328 body,' he says not that the bread is not bread and that his body is not a body, but he has said demonstrably bread and body, which is in the ousia. But we are persuaded that the bread is bread in nature and in ousia. Yet in believing that the bread is his body / by faith and not by nature, he seeks to persuade us to believe in that which exists not in ousia in such wise that it becomes this by faith and not in ousia. If it is [a question of the] ousia, what is the faith worth? For he has not said: 'Believe that the bread is bread,' because every one who sees the bread itself knows that it is bread, nor further does he make it be believed that the body is body; for it is seen and known of every one. But in that which it is not he requires us to believe that this is [so], in such wise that it becomes this by faith to them that believe. Therefore it is not possible that the [properties residing] in the ousia should be one thing and another in one [thing] of which we should believe that it is said to be another, though it exists not in its own ousia, that they may become two and be alien to one another in the ousia. But he who therein suppresses the ousia, therewith suppresses that too which is conceived by faith.
Therefore also it is not in any way pleasing that we should openly make use indeed of what he thus says; for surely he is deceiving [us], since he accepts and suppresses these things so that he proves to every one that there are [views] true and false, both of orthodoxy and of heresy, in him; and I have obeyed him as one [would do] in what he requires. Nor have they been able to prove in any of those things which have been said by me that I am an heretic, but he has proved me / in all the [doctrines] of orthodoxy. And the things which he stirred not up in the beginning, he had stirred up in the [arguments] wherewith he defended himself, as he has now also defended himself on behalf of the Easterns, howbeit boldly and cunningly. But some one will say: 'Why have the Easterns accepted the deposition of thine Impiety whereof they accuse thee, although however thou hast taught nothing at all alien [to the faith]? But they too seem to accuse [him] of the same things whereof thou accusest him |329 and they set aside these things while accepting also those very things, and there is nothing more. . . .' For we ought to ask the one 178 and the others 179 likewise concerning these things. But if you are willing to learn even from me, I will speak of that which [has become known] gradually unto every one, not that I may be accepted and helped by men----for I neglect for my part all human things, since I have died unto the world and I am living unto whom I am living----but I will speak because of those who have been scandalized, not of myself nor after my own [words], but after this man himself 178 whom Christ has constrained to make defence on my behalf. For they have said naught else except that they have been constrained by the command of the Emperor to accept all these things.
Cyril. The bishops at Constantinople have said: 'The pious bishop John must anathematize / the teaching of Nestorius and confess in writing his deposition.'
Nestorius. Therefore until then, according to the bishop of Antioch and according to the Easterns and according to the orthodox bishops, I was bishop.
Cyril. As then the pious Emperor agreed with them very joyfully therein, my lord the admirable tribune and secretary Aristolaus was sent for the correction of this [business].180 But when the command of the Emperor was |330 shown unto the Easterns, as though it had been [issued] by the will of the holy bishops who were assembled in Constantinople the capital, they were assembled----I know not what they thought----with the saintly and pious Acacius, bishop of Aleppo,181 and made him write unto me about the manner of the reconciliation of the peace of the churches; [that] it ought not to take place otherwise except in so far as it seemed good unto them. But this demand was hard and serious; for they were requiring that all the things should be suppressed which had been written [by me] in letters and books and writings.
Concerning what had taken place after the enforced peace. 182
Nestorius. Until then, when they wrote these things, the other 183 also was [to be found] among the heretics, when every one, and not [only] certain individuals, knew and was blaming the things which were written by him. The hand was [the Emperor's] which led them by force, while there was / nought at [my] disposal to be done against what they were requiring. For all those who hear us have understood----for [many a] one used to suffer with us owing to the violence which took place by the command of the Emperor----that they have brought me |331 to [such] an extremity as this. But some one will grow angry, [asking] for what reason they abode not by the things which they once judged. For they are but slightly busied, [in taking measures] against what has been carried out against me for the sake of the correction and the confession of the faith and the agreement of the churches. Like the manner, however, of a tyrant when he comes to capture and cannot take a city, but for the declaration of peace seeks to procure the death of him who is fighting for them against him, that, when he has procured it, it may be defeated, thus the latter too has asked for my deposition to be granted without judgement. Let this be [so]. It concerns not me [to busy myself] with what has been carried out against me, but only that there may be peace among the churches. And I endure all things for the ordering of the churches. But all things have happened to the contrary.
For after he [had] received that for which he was anxious, he both reduced them under his hand for the sake of an apparent peace 184 and knew that he profited naught by what was carried out against me; but the confession of the faith, for the sake of which there was war against me, was confirmed. And it had been evident that there was enmity and violence and that it was a proof of the things which were taking place and that it would be possible for them also easily to be kept secret. But, that this might not take place, and further that my own enemies / might not become his accusers, [namely] those who had formerly aided him in the things which were carried out against me, he began to be drawn towards the confession of the faith, showing himself wise and making sport of the two sides with contrary confessions [of faith]. But they accurately examined and knew that certain among them were become enfeebled and had suffered many things, without even having been accounted worthy of any aid. And for this reason they were not easily breaking the peace which they [had] made as a result of the writings which were written by them from one side and another, desiring to be left in the same [circumstances], that they might think thus. But |332 because he 185 had been accused by those who were clinging to his [side] and were confessing [the same faith] with him as one who went beyond the common opinion and had destroyed alone the zeal of all of them by his authority and by his disdain of them, he feared lest they should be alienated from him or rise up against him, and he was zealous to perform more than they were requiring.
And like the manner of those who are taken in war, [who,] seeking to prove that they are like-minded with their captors, spare not friends nor sons nor fathers in order that they may make them believe that they hate their [own] race, so also he immediately inclined himself to rise up against the Fathers who aforetime had passed away, against Diodorus and Theodorus, who were the common Fathers [of all] both while they were living / and when they [had] passed away, both his own [Fathers] and ours the same. Although he designated them, with whom he used to participate, as the enemies of every man and was clinging to the very Fathers and to the orthodox, yet he had even obtained with all zeal their own labours on behalf of the faith and had commanded [them] to be sent unto all. Yet, while he sought however to persuade [men] that he held not back against me out of hatred, he was seeking to anathematize those against whom no one would have expected nor even [have made bold] to suppose that he would have dared any such thing. And, what is baser 186 than all things, he destroyed the sermons which were published against Apollinarius and supported those of Apollinarius, saying, 'It is the faith of the Church'. [Do you ask] on which party one would lean: on the party of Apollinarius, or that of the holy Fathers in all the world whom also all the world glorifies and whom it has reckoned with the single zeal as [of] a common mouth against Apollinarius and Arius and Macedonius and Eunomius and all the heresies, or on the side of Apollinarius? Suppose that I, who have not been obedient in the things which thou hast required of me, have been an enemy unto thee; for what reason dost thou war on my account with those who have passed away in orthodoxy? Or perhaps thou |333 warrest on account of them who [are] with me? / But, that I may speak the truth, thou warrest with every man because of thine impiety in all things.
Tell me: Were there not Basil and Gregory in the days of Diodorus? Were there not also at Alexandria bishops known for [their] conduct and for [their] words? Were there not at Rome accomplished men who would suffice to stand up on behalf of the churches? And were not they who were doctors in all the world [sufficient] to stand up on behalf of the churches, men who were not [living] in luxury and in glory and in honour and in pleasure, but in persecutions and in distress and in wars and in fear, who had preserved and kept the true faith without wavering, [rather] than he who was an heretic and deceived----that is Diodorus, who was in every man's mouth and is handed down in books and was a [cause of] fear unto heretics, who by the word of doctrine and by divine grace raised himself up against the commands of [his] Majesty for the people of God and let them not perish but increased them manifold, and the whole concord of the churches was won by him? Then he was not an heretic neither for them of that time nor yet for thee thyself nor for thy [followers] nor yet during the disturbance itself which thou madest against me. But after thou wast encouraged and wast entered [on the way] whereon thou wast entered and [hadst] reached this tyrannical agreement, then were Diodorus and Theodorus and the rest of the others / become heretics in thine eyes. For the way was becoming [open] before thee also against Basil and Gregory and Athanasius and Ambrose and against the rest of the others who at the same time said the same things.
Who is there who would not groan that this idea was come [to pass]: that, encouraged by the commands of [his] Majesty and by fear and by punishments, they were constraining the Easterns and, after the peace, were dragging and bringing them like captives and pressing round them to make them anathematize their Fathers? They reached this peace and this unanimity: thus they thought one thought, thus they rested from the suffering of wrongs, when they [had] delivered me |334 over to my enemy. Because they were fearful, they were saying that it was better that one man should suffer injury and [that] the faith should prevail. But would indeed that this had been true! How this would not irk me! But on the contrary I should have surely rejoiced when aught for which they were eager was receiving correction. But on the contrary they had suffered for [the words] which they allowed me [to say] and for the things which they let be said and further [for those] which people allowed them not to say, though I myself was saying them, and for which they had cast me out. And after that they fought against Theodore and after him against Diodorus and then also against every single / one of the rest of the others, and they were intent on the same intention, having set themselves to drive them out with me, as indeed they were saying those very things and naught else. And they ought either to drive them out with me for the same [reasons] or to accept me, even me, and to accept them too. But they dared not say that I should be accepted, because they had once driven me out; and it would have been necessary also for them, though grieving, to drive them out and afterwards for these same [reasons] to drive out also the others themselves, because those others were imagining and teaching the same things, and [saying] that these things were true. And with this boldness he hoped to rise up against all the saints to accept [their doctrine] and thereupon to invert and to alter the things which he [had] received.
For this man himself 187 showed his [true] self after the original confession [of the faith], both gradually adding and subtracting and saying the same things; and he denied therein the compulsion and the authority, acting and scheming until he suppressed [the doctrine] that those whereof Christ is are two natures; and he placed the natures in the names and not in the ousias and imposed the confession of one nature as if by law.188 Then, in striving to undo and to overthrow those who predicated two natures, [he attacked,] not indeed all of them at the |335 same time, but / in the first place certain men, in order that, when he [had] prevailed against the latter, he might go to war little by little against the rest of them, as against persons who were saying these [same] things as the others. For those too of whom they were making use in [bearing] witness to what the others [had] said, were saying those very things----and this is not a new discovery----[and] he was driving them out as heretics. And I too say these [same] things as those [others], and thus they confess as heretics! And they and all of them at the same time were increasing this very depravity of impiety in the face of every one. For he was not citing the [words] of the orthodox and of those doctors who [were] before me so as to prove that I am an heretic, but on the contrary he was taking my own [words] against them that he might prove that they [were] heretics, because the things which were said by them were like unto mine. But let us show also the things which were coming to pass after these things and took [their] beginning therefrom.
[Selected footnotes. Note that all the Greek given from Labbe is omitted]
3. 1 So marked in the Syriac text as the heading of a new section.
6. 2 No new paragraph is marked here in the Syriac text.
9. 2 No new paragraph is marked here in the Syriac text.
12. 1 Nau makes certain additions to the text and renders: 'that which thou didst admit when thou wast interrogated thou oughtest [to establish and that which thou didst not admit thou oughtest] to bring to an end.' No new paragraph is marked here in the Syriac text.
13. 2 The Syriac scribe adds in a note: 'Here some leaves have fallen out.' Between the quotation from the Creed and that from Nestorius' letter, Nau inserts the title Réponse et comparaison des lettres taken from the Syriac translator's summary. Certainly Nestorius here passes from the historical section to a resumption of the doctrinal discussion based on a comparison of his own and Cyril's letters.
14. 1 For the reading of the Creed and Nestorius' Letter at the Council, see Labbe (Mansi), iv. 1137 and 1169; the text of the letter is in Labbe (Mansi), iv. 892 sq.; Loofs, Nestoriana, p. 173. The passage quoted is in Labbe (Mansi) iv. 893 B, C.
15. 2 Viz. Cyril. Nestorius' point is that the Fathers at Nicaea begin by using the words 'Lord' and 'Son', which are applicable to both natures, while Cyril substitutes 'God the Word', which is not. Cp. Labbe (Mansi), iv. 888 d, 893 b.
16. 1 From Cyril's Second Letter to Nestorius, Labbe (Mansi), iv. 889 a, c, e.
17. 2 Viz. the hypostasis and the ousia.
19. 3 Viz. St. Paul; cp. Gal. iv. 4.
20. 1 I. e. (presumably) would have objected to the use of 'God' and 'Christ' as interchangeable terms.
21. 1 Altering the punctuation of the Syriac text which puts this stop after 'union'.
22. 2 From Cyril's Second Letter, Labbe (Mansi), iv. 892 b
23. 3 In the Syriac text this sentence is given as a question with a mark of interrogation.
24. 1 From Cyril's Second Letter, Labbe (Mansi), iv. 889 d: Nestorius' argument is obscure in detail, but its main tenor is clear. Assuming that Cyril does not hold an Apollinarian view of Christ's body, he argues that to speak of the Son sitting with his body with the father is open to the accusation of teaching 'two sons' just as much as anything that he himself has said. Hence Cyril is convicted of inconsistency and can himself be quoted as authority for doctrines that he denounces in Nestorius.
25. 1 There is no new paragraph marked here in the Syriac text.
27. 3 Nau inserts here a negative which is not found in the Syriac text.
28. 1 Syr. 'a prosôpon as a hypostasis', apparently mistranslating the double accusative in the Greek original. See pp. xiv-xv.
29. 3 There is apparently a lacuna in the Syriac text here.
32. 1 Viz. (presumably) the human element in Christ, Jesus qua man.
33. 2 A passage such as this seems to show clearly that Nestorius did not teach merely a 'moral union', i.e. a union resulting from and consisting in the fact that the two natures in Christ both willed alike. Like the orthodox he makes that unity of will the consequence of the union, not its ground. Cp. pp. 59, 62, 70.
35. 1 Loofs suggests that the words 'as indeed are those who are united in nature' have been inadvertently transposed, and are the end of the previous sentence (Nestorius and his Place, &c, p. 91). Apart from such emendation Nestorius is here either inconsistent or more than usually obscure.
36. 2 Viz. St. Paul; cp. Phil. ii. 7,8.
38. 1 From Nestorius' Second Letter to Cyril. See Labbe (Mansi) iv. 893 B.
At the end of this quotation the Syriac copyist adds in a foot-note, 'Here there is a blank space, six lines'.
40. 1 I . e. the term 'Mother of God'.
42. 1 Presumably a mistaken rendering of '318' in the Greek.
46. 2 We have not been able to trace the source of this quotation. Nau refers to the following two passages: (1) Cyril, ad Acacium (Labbe (Mansi), v. 320 d). . (2) The following extracts from Nestorius' writings read at the Council (Labbe (Mansi), iv. 1201 B).
47. 3 For instances in ancient literature of 'belief in the soporific and narcotic quality of mandragora or mandrake' see Frazer, Folklore in the Old Testament, vol. ii, pp. 385-6.
50. 1 See p. 95, n. 1. Nau suggests the addition of the words Refutation des Accusations as the title of Book ii, part i. [Note to the online text: this extra heading indicates that the editors have rearranged the text -- see note for details]
53. 2 Cp. e.g. Cyril's letter to Acacius of Melitene, on p. 180, n. i above.
54. 2 The Syriac text indicates a lacuna here.
56. 2 The Syriac copyist has here added a note to the following effect: 'From here twelve pages have been torn out and lost from the original by the troops of Bedr Khan Bey, when they captured the district of Das in the year 2154 of the Greeks (= a. d. 1843).' See Introd. p. xi.
57. 4 These words are added, as also by Nau, from the Greek text.
58. 2 I.e. the doctrine of the two generations, (1) that of God the Word 'begotten of the Father before all worlds'; (2) that of Christ, born in time of the Virgin Mary.
59. 3 Literally: 'under beginning and under completion'.
60. 1 Nestorius here uses language drawn from a passage of Gregory of Nazienzum which was read at the Council, and which later he quotes frequently as supporting his arguments. See pp. 195 and 200 for the text.
61. 3 The copyist has added here in the margin the following note: 'Two lines have been left blank in the exemplar.' Nau suggests that they were so left for the title of the following section to be inserted in red ink, as elsewhere in the manuscript; cp. pp. 201, n. 3, 203, n. 2.
62. 2 Viz. Ambrose. The following are the passages from Ambrose read at the Council to which Nestorius refers. See Labbe (Mansi), iv. 1189 d, e.
63. 4 Nau suggests that the space of four lines at the head of this quotation in the Syriac was left for the title to be inserted in red ink.
64. 1 Viz. Gregory and Athanasius.
65. 2 The copyist has here added the following note in the margin: 'These lines in the original are blank,' from which Nau supposes that the title of the following section has fallen out; cp. pp. 196, n. 2, and 201, 11. 4.
66. 1 Viz. the name which he took for the purpose of exalting it above all other names.
67. 2 This is one of the very few passages in which at first sight Nestorius seems to suggest something very like 'Nestorianism' as commonly understood; cp. p. 224, n. 3. But that this was not his intention is clear from pp. 225, 312-15. It is interesting that here, immediately after the suspicious passage, he claims for his doctrine that which 'Nestorianism' has usually been held to lack----the provision for a universal atonement.
69. 1 The phrase 'so that he is not' must clearly be taken as expressing a corollary of the view which Nestorius is rejecting.
70. 2 Here Nestorius refuses totidem verbis to deny the human hypostasis of Christ; but see p. 156, n. 2. This passage surely makes it all the clearer that Nestorius used the word hypostasis in its older sense as practically equivalent to what Cyril called ousia. The two words are evidently synonymous in the sentence below beginning: 'But in name alone he has a body . . .' See too p. 218, n. 3.
73. 2 I . e. the name 'Christ' as used by Nestorius.
74. 3 These words are added by Nau to complete the antithesis.
76. 5 There is no new paragraph marked here in the Syriac text.
86. 2 Viz. the man who suffers and obeys.
89. 5 The previous quotations from Gregory have been from Gregory of Nazianzum. This one is from Gregory of Nyssa, Labbe (Mansi), iv. 1193 d.
90. 3 In passages such as this Nestorius seems to approach most nearly to teaching Nestorianism as usually understood; indeed it may be argued that such teaching is logically implied in the language he uses. But that it is not his own intention to imply it he shows clearly almost immediately in the paragraph on p. 225 beginning: 'And thou dost concede . . .'
91. 1 A gap, not a new paragraph, is marked here in the Syriac text.
93. 2 Viz. the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews.
94. 3 Part of the passage read at the Council from the sixth Paschal Epistle of Theophilus of Alexandria, Labbe (Mansi), iv. 1189 a.
98. 1 Literally: 'by parts' or 'in parts'.
100. 2 Inserted by Bedjan in the Syriac text.
101. 1 This sums up Nestorius' dissatisfaction with the Cyrillian conception of the 'impersonal manhood of Christ', and the question at issue is whether he misunderstood that conception, or rightly criticized it as unintelligible. See e.g. Loofs, Nestorius and His Place, p. 73. Consistently with this Nestorius suspects Cyril of treating Christ's manhood as something less than human; cp. p. 260.
103. 1 This statement of the doctrine of the communicatio idiomatum is surely in accordance with that elaborated in Leo's Tome and accepted as orthodox at Chalcedon. For an estimate of Nestorius' teaching on this point drawn from other sources than this work see T. H. Bindley, Oecumenical Documents of the Faith, p. 113: 'Leo drew out this at length in the Tome. Nestorius would not or could not see the validity of this method of speech, nor allow that the Son could enter the sphere of human life while still remaining within the Divine sphere.'
104. 1 The passage in brackets is restored from the Greek.
107. 1 Cp. p. 262,1. 27. For Loof's interpretation of this phrase see Nestorius and his Place in the History of Christian Doctrine, pp. 92-4.
109. 3 There is no new paragraph marked here in the Syriac text.
110. 1 The Syriac text gives this sentence as interrogative.
111. 3 There is no new paragraph marked here in the Syriac text.
112. 1 If this, the literal rendering of the Syriac, be retained, 'not God' must be taken together as meaning 'human'. But it is much more probable that the 'not' of the Syriac represents the οὐ of the Greek μὴ οὐ after a negatived verb of denying and should therefore be omitted in English.
113. 1 Nau, following the Greek, inserts: Pierre, prêtre d'Alexandrie et premier des notaires, dit.
114. 3 Cp. Loofs, Nestoriana, pp. 284, 285.
115. 2 Viz. Cyril, archbishop of Alexandria.
117. 4 Cp. the account given by Nestorius and his adherents in Labbe (Mansi), iv. 1232 E-1236 a.
118. 1 These are the twelve anathematisms appended by Cyril to his third letter to Nestorius, printed in Labbe (Mansi), iv. 1081 sqq. Together with Cyril's letter they were read at the Council, and inserted in the Acts, but whether they were formally approved is doubtful, though the Easterns and the Chalcedonian Council assumed that they were. See Labbe (Mansi), vi. 937, 972.
The anathematisms, with Nestorius' counter-anathemas, the comments of Theodoret and the Easterns, and Cyril's replies, are printed in Bindley, Oecumenical Documents of the Faith (2nd ed.), pp. 144 sqq.
120. 1 Literally: 'with which the operations of the churches are full'.
121. 4 Syr. masyonin = Lat. mansiones, one mansio being equivalent to ten parasangs.
122. 1 A monophysite account of such phenomena as these, written in Syriac between 512 and 518 A. D., has been edited by Nau with a French translation; sec Jean Rufus, Eveque de Maiouma, Plerophories (Patrologia Orientalis VIII. i, Paris, 1912).
123. 2 Literally: 'trusted ones', 'intimates'. Nau renders eunuques (see Payne-Smith, Thes. Syr. i. 233-4).
124. 3 Literally: 'ministering', of which the precise connotation is shown by the Greek original, ψάλλοντες ἀντίφωνα. Cp. Labbe (Mansi), iv. 1428 c. For the part played by Dalmatius, see Labbe (Mansi), iv. 1257-60, 1397-8, 1427-30, and Lupus, Var. Patr. Epist., p. 419.
128. 1 The story of Cyril's bribery is continued below, p. 349. The other evidence for it is contained in the letters of Acacius of Beroea and Epiphanius the Archdeacon and Syncellus of Cyril; see Labbe (Mansi), v. 819 and 987-9. The list of gifts referred to by Epiphanius is reprinted from Florilegium Casinense by Nau in an appendix. These documents are discussed in Hefele, History of the Church Councils, §§ 130 and 156. Nestorius uses the following language in a sermon reported by Marius Mercator: Quid me latenter sagittis aureis iacularis? quid in me sagittas aureas absconditus mittis? . . . Noli me sagittis aureis vulnerare; non sunt mihi sagittae aureae (Loofs, Nestoriana, pp. 299, 308).
129. 3 I.e. Timothy I, bishop of Alexandria, A.D. 381.
132. 1 For the names of those chosen by the Orientals see Lupus, Var. Patr. Epist., p. 65; Labbe (Mansi), iv. 1400 a, h. In Labbe the number is eight.
134. 1 Cp. Lupus. Var. Patr. Epist., p. 70.
137. 4 Cp. Labbe (Mansi), iv. 1401-7. No new paragraph is marked here in the Syriac text.
140. 1 Altered rightly by Nau into 'after', on the grounds that Nestorius has just spoken of the dispatch of the seven bishops to Chalcedon and that this section deals with the agreement of Cyril with John of Antioch.
141. 2 Literally: 'seven of the one and seven of the other'.
142. 1 Syr. burkta, 'blessing', a euphemism for 'presents' or 'gifts'; see Payne-Smith. Thes. Syr., col. 614 b.
143. 2 Cp. Kidd, History of the Church, vol. iii, pp. 256-62. In April 432 the Emperor sent Aristolaus, a tribune and notary, to John of Antioch, Acacius of Beroea, and St. Simeon Stylites. He was to endeavour to make peace by persuading the Easterns to abandon Nestorius and Cyril to give up his Twelve Articles. After some negotiations, in which Paul of Emesa joined Aristolaus, Cyril and most of the Easterns came to an agreement before the end of the year, Nestorius being abandoned but without the explicit withdrawal of Cyril's Articles. Cp. Labbe (Mansi), v. 277-84, 312, 347-51, 663-6, 827, S28; Lupus, Var. Patr. Epist., pp. 385, 386. Introd. pp. xxii, xxiii.
144. 4 Viz. Cyril and John of Antioch.
145. 1 Although the first actual quotation from the correspondence between Cyril and Acacius does not occur till about two pages further on, the section dealing with that correspondence seems to begin at this point. There is therefore no need to follow Nau in regarding this heading as a later insertion in the text.
151. 6 Viz. the Eastern bishops.
152. 1 There is surely here a confusion in Nestorius' thought. Would not the divine nature, which prevents us from thinking of God the Word as being born, prevent us also from thinking of Him in any way as moving through space, e.g. passing through the Virgin?
153. 1 So the Syriac text; but the true sense is given by the Greek, where the verb is in the plural, the subject understood being the Easterns with whom Cyril has come to agreement. See pp. xiii, 401.
155. 2 The rest of this paragraph seems to be a statement of the characteristics of a 'natural union' designed to show that that form of union is inapplicable to the 'Union of the Nature' in Christ.
157. 1 I.e. the union of Christ's divinity with his humanity took place simultaneously with the creation of the latter. Cp. p. 237.
159. 1 The whole passage is taken from Cyril's letter, and follows immediately on p. 393, n. 2; Nestorius has added the name 'Acacius'.
161. 3 The specific meanings of the words 'divide', 'distinguish', 'separate', etc., cannot be pressed in this translation. The editors have appropriated one English word to each Syriac word, but the result is at times unsatisfactory, as here. The sense required is clearly 'separate', while the Syriac word is that rendered throughout by 'distinct'. See the definitions on pp. 313-16. The Syriac translator seems to have used these words very loosely and without any precise discrimination of meaning. Cp. p. 154, n. 1.
162. 1 Here Nestorius gives the most concise summary of his position. He then goes on to contrast it with 'Nestorianism' as commonly understood; see p. 314, n.1
163. 1 Here Nestorius most directly repudiates 'Neslorianism' as usually underStood; see notes on pp. 205, 224.
164. 2 There is no new paragraph marked here in the Syriac text.
165. 3 Viz. the Eastern bishops.
166. 2 I.e. the distinction of natures; see p. 316, n. 1.
167. 1 I. e. the distinction of natures.
168. 3 I.e. because Cyril only allows of one nature.
169. 4 From the letter which John of Antioch sent to Cyril by Paul of Emesa, Labbe (Mansi), v. 292 C.
170. 1 Cp. the passage from Cyr. ad Nest. iii quoted on p. 325, n. 1.
171. 1 ' Thus also of Christ . . . .' This passage seems to reveal an important difference of terminology between Cyril and Nestorius. Nestorius spoke indifferently of two 'natures' or two 'ousias' in Christ, but he objects to Cyril substituting 'natural quality' for 'nature', assuming that a 'quality' is not necessarily a real element in an object of thought, but may be something said or thought about it existing only in the mind of the thinker. But if for Cyril 'nature' was the sum of the 'natural qualities' (φυσικαὶ ποιότητες) and they shared its reality, it is easy to see how there was room for confusion.
172. 3 Both 'idea' and 'reflection' represent the same Syriac word.
173. 2 Viz. the natural quality.
174. 2 Note that Nestorius here charges Cyril's teaching with implied docetism.
179. 2 Viz. the Eastern bishops.
180. 4 The Syriac text ascribes the words 'As then the pious... of this [business]' to Nestorius, making the second quotation from Cyril begin at 'But when the command . . .' The correction, accepted by both Bedjan and Nau, is based on the Greek original, of which the whole section is here printed; cp. Labbe (Mansi), v. 309E.
181. 1 Nau points out that the name 'Aleppo' is due to the Syriac editor; for the Greek has 'Beroea'. The See of Beroea only changed its name to that of Aleppo in a. d. 638. See p. xi.
182. 2 According to Bedjan and Nau, these words are to be regarded, not as the closing words of the extract from Cyril's writings, but as the Syriac editor's heading of the following section. Bedjan proposes to place here the beginning of Bk. II, pt. ii, instead of on Syr. p. 459.
184. 1 Literally: 'a peace of schema'.
188. 2 This is Nestorius' most concise summary of Cyril's position as he understands it.
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