Five Tomes Against Nestorius

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Cyril of Alexandria, Five Tomes Against Nestorius.

Oxford (1881)

Book 1. pp.1-37.

A library of fathers of the holy Catholic church: anterior to the division of

the East and West, vol. 47

THE MOST HOLY ARCHBISHOP OF ALEXANDRIA

FIVE-BOOK CONTRADICTION OF THE BLASPHEMIES OF NESTORIUS

OR THE FIVE TOMES OF S. CYRIL.

[Translated by P.E. P

USEY

]

Truth of human writings must be tested by Scripture. Arian errors and against Holy Ghost. Errors of heretics on their heads. Nestorius' book of Homilies. S. (John i. 1),3,14,18. True Union of Person. Mother of God. "Made Flesh;"

Manichees have no plea; without it, the curse and decay would still have been our lot. " Mother of God" except it express a Truth, may no ways be allowed. 'Passed through,' objected to. To be Incarnate, belongs

one who was, before He was Man. " Mixture " of old used in right sense. One of Nestorius' sermons quoted as owning God and Man in one.

συνάφεια

A mother, mother of a man, though the body only is taken of her. Elizabeth mother of S. John the Baptist. Eusebius of Dorylaeum opposes Nestorius in church. GOD the

SON

had

two Births. The Creed of Nicea on the Incarnation. The Creed recited. Nestorius cites from that of Constantinople. "Incarnate" begotten after the flesh. If it did but mean indwelt it would be common to all. S. John's most careful accurate language. That the Virgin Mary bare God, does not exclude the Eternal Generation, nor render her an object of worship.

THOSE who wish to explore the holy Scripture and who drive away negligence in doing so, and thirst rather for the attainment thereof, and apply themselves vigorously and apart from all sloth----the being in every good shall be their's, for they fill their mind with the Divine Light: and then applying it to the doctrines of the Church, they admit every thing that is right and unadulterate, and that most readily, and lay it up in the hidden treasures of their soul, and rejoice as much in what they in their desire of knowledge have collected, as others who are worldly, in insatiably collecting Indian gems or gold, yea rather, yet more:

for wisdom is better than costly stones, and every precious thing is not worthy of her,

as it is written. For I say that they who are wise and prudent and skilled in the Divine doctrines, ought to remember what has been profitably written by one of the holy Disciples,

Brethren try the spirits whether they he of God.

And the Divine Paul says that to the saints has been given

discerning of spirits.

For the one who say

Lord Jesus,

will say it none otherwise than

through the Holy Ghost:

and they who out of unlearning let loose a contradicting tongue against them, and wherein those think rightly, these all but say

Jesus Anathema,

from Beelzebub will they do so. We must then studying to prove all things subtilly and in a finished manner and with mind awake, light on the writings of certain, and test skillfully what words they use of Christ the Saviour of us all, and imitate, and that aright, the most approved and experienced of money dealers, who admit proved coin, and diligently reject the counterfeit and amiss. And to this the blessed Paul invites us saying,

Be ye skilful

bankers, prove all things, hold fast that which is good, abstain from every form of evil.

And it is in

other ways also all-disgraceful and unseemly, that in the affairs of this life we should be seen no whit sparing of what conduceth to profit, but rather make it of moment to aim and strive after those things whereby we may live splendidly, and neglect things so sacred and count for nothing the salvation of the soul, but let it sink down in pits and swamps, sometimes exposing unto the mere pleasure of those who choose to say what they ought not, our mind, not vigilant for the truth, nor choosing to search diligently what is the true and profitable meaning of what has been read, what the perverted one and that outsteps accuracy in doctrine and works loss in the soul that looks to it. Yet to the soul is there nought equal in value in their sight who are perfect in understanding.

We must try therefore and that most straitly, writings on the Divine doctrines, and if any should go along with the sacred Scriptures and speed its clear and most unerring way therein, let it be acclaimed by us too with testimonies to its orthodoxy: but if it form its language cold and astray and amiss, yea rather giver of destruction to the readers, let it hear from every mouth,

But ye are uttering

and telling us another error.

Therefore

either

let them

make the tree good and his fruit good, or

let them

make the tree corrupt and his fruit corrupt;

for the

good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth good things, and the evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bring eth forth evil things,

according to the unlying word of the Saviour. For

the god of this world blinded the understandings of the unbelieving

heretics,

lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ should shine:

and they

have been deceived manifoldly. For some (miserable!) say that the Word sprung of God the Father is lesser than He that begot Him, and have not shuddered at apportioning to Him an alien and slave-befitting measure; others, whetting against the Holy Ghost their unholy and intemperate mouth, do rightly hear the Prophet say,

But draw

YE

near hither, ungodly sons, seed of the adulterers and

the whore, against Whom did ye sport yourselves? and against Whom opened ye your mouth and on Whom let loose your tongue? are

YE

not children of destruction, a lawless seed?

But these shall

walk in their own light

and find

the

flames

that themselves

kindled:

for us whose care is orthodoxy, it is meet that we should give a wise and accurate account of each of the Divine doctrines and should shun the charges [put forth by] their unbridled mouth, lest in ought stumbling and sinning

against the brethren and

wounding

their weak conscience,

sin against Christ,

Let

us therefore hearken unto Him Who saith,

If the enemy had reproached Me, I could have borne it, and if he that hated Me had spoken proudly against Me, I would have hid Myself from him, but

THOU,

a man Mine intimate, My guide and My friend, who sweetenedst food together with Me, in the house of God we went in harmony.

But let these things

go upon the heads of the enemy, who war against the glory of our Saviour, and esteem blasphemy against Him, their delicate meat: for us it is meet and necessary (as I said) that we, zealous to savour those things that please Him, should not follow [doctrine] which is alien from truth or which diverges in any other direction, and tends to decay, [but

follow] that which is for the good of our flock and is crowned by the Truth itself with testimonies to its rightness.

And this I say having met with a certain book compiled by some one, having a large collection of homilies, orderly and systematically arranged and in no wise lacking in due appliances for the reader. And if ought had been said by its author, which by passing into forgetfulness should come to nought, I would have deemed it a duty both myself to hold my peace and to counsel others to do the same; lest things so unmeetly and unheedfully said should become known to many others, and to those after us. But since a multitude of blasphemies has been heaped into this book and some great accusation has been made, baying against the doctrines of the truth, how was it not necessary that we in turn should (so to say) strip for combat and should fight in behalf of its readers, that they may not take harm thence, but may rather know how to repulse bravely the damage from what is unrightly said? For the Divine John was called by Christ the Saviour of us all

the Son of thunder,

and with reason, for that he well-nigh sounded forth o'er all beneath the heaven and thundered over the earth, uttering something vast and immense

For he makes known full well the truly dread and mighty Mystery of the Incarnation of the Only-Begotten: for he said,

In the, beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God: all things were made through Him, and without Him was not any thing made.

But when he had made accurate and complete initiation, and declared that the Only-Begotten being God and ineffably begotten of God by Nature, is Maker and Creator of all things; then, then, in fit season, does he at length begin the allwise economy that for our sakes and in our behalf was wrought, and says,

And the Word was made flesh and tabernacled in us (and we saw His glory, the glory as of the Only-Begotten of the Father) full of grace and truth.

For he said that the Word was

flesh,

shewing the force of the true union, i.e., understood as one "of Person:" and by saying that He

tabernacled in us,

he does not

allow us to conceive that the Word which is out of God by Nature passed into flesh which is of the earth. For one not thoroughly exact as to what the Divine Nature Which surpasses every thing generate is, might (I suppose) have deemed that It was haply recipient of change and could become regardless of Its own Essentially-accruing goods, and change (so to say) into something other than what It is, and be brought down to the measures of the creation, subjected in unlooked-for way to changes and alterations. But that this is utterly impossible (for the Nature of God is stablished and hath unshaken abidance in that wherein it is), he hath testified saying, that

the Word tabernacled in us,

albeit made flesh: both skilfully explaining the wisdom of the Economy and guarding full well that the Nature of the Word be not accused by any as though It had become flesh by change and turning aside.

We ourselves too then say, tracking the aim of the inspired, and in no way outstepping the definition of the Faith, that He Who is out of

God by Nature,

the Only-Begotten,

Which is in the Bosom of the Father,

He through Whom are all things and in Whom all things, albeit having before every age and time His Own Existence, and ever co-existing with Him Who begot Him, descended unto voluntary emptiness in the last times of the world, and took the servant's form, i.e., became in our condition and Man economically, and was

made like in all things unto His brethren,

by partaking similarly

of blood and flesh,

and that He thus underwent birth with us and like us, and took into Himself the passing into being of His own Flesh, not as needing a second beginning unto being (for

the Word was in the beginning and was God)

but, that He might

gather together

the human race, a second first-fruits of all things after that first one, born after the flesh of a woman, according to the Scriptures. For so being

Rich, became He poor,

bringing us again unto His own wealth and having all in Himself through the flesh which was united to Him. For thus

have we been

buried with

Christ through Holy

Baptism,

have been

raised

and made to

sit

with Him

in heavenly

places. For so hath written the steward of His mysteries, the

herald and Apostle,

and minister of the Gospel oracles, the most wise Paul. Necessary therefore, alike to the faith of the Mystery and to the exact demonstration thereof, is the fact of true Union, I mean of Person, that the mode of generation according to the flesh of the Only-Begotten may be without blame, Who was (as I said) called to no second existence (for Himself is the Maker of the worlds), but lowered Himself economically to manhood for our sakes, and despised not the laws of human nature but chose rather to have as His own together with the flesh the fleshly generation too. Therefore do we say that He was born after the flesh Who is ever Co-existent with the Father. For thus

condemned

sin in the flesh

and He hath brought to nought the might of death in us, made as we,

Who knew

no sin, in Whom we live and move and are.

But some (I know not how) wrong the most sacred beauty of the dogmas of the Church and wrinkle the holy and all-pure Virgin, bringing her down to the unseemly rottenness of their own ideas and arming against us a multitude of new-fangled inventions. For they accuse, as something bastard and uncomely, yea rather as going beyond all fit language, the word

Mother of God,

which the holy fathers before us have constructed for the holy Virgin; and sunder, dividing into two several sons, the One Lord Jesus Christ, and take away from God the Word the sufferings of the Flesh, though not even we have said that He suffered in His own Nature, as God, but we attribute rather to Him along with the Flesh the Sufferings also that befel the Flesh, that He too may be confessed to be Saviour

(for with His stripes

were WE

healed,

as it is written, and

has been

wounded for our transgressions,

albeit not recipient of suffering any wound): and WE have been saved by His undergoing death for us through His own Body.

But I will essay to demonstrate clearly what I said, for I will now read the words of him who has compiled this book,

and first of all those which he made, inveighing in no slight terms against the word

Mother of God.

But since he repeatedly goes through the same words, and it is necessary that we should repeatedly go through the same ideas, pardon (I pray) pardon us who do not wilfully repeat ourselves but have resolved that in whatever direction the aim of his words goes off, thither we too ought to oppose. He then spake thus, debasing the title of the Holy Virgin,

I mean

Mother of God:

Nestorius

. "I often (he says) asked them" (i. e., those who contradict him) "do you say that the Godhead has been begotten of the holy Virgin? They straightway recoil at the saying: who (says one) is sick of such exceeding blasphemy, as to say that in her who bare the temple by the Spirit, in her was God formed? then when I reply to this, What then that is incongruous do WE say in advising to flee the word, and come to the common phrase significant of the two natures? then seems it to them that what is said is blasphemy. Either clearly acknowledge that the Godhead has been born of the blessed Mary, or if you flee this expression as blasphemy, why saying the same as I, dost thou feign thou sayest it not?"

§1. They therefore who think contrary to what yourself said and think good (I know not how) to hold, these have been clearly testified to by your own mouth as having a right and most unerring opinion in regard to Christ the Saviour of us all, and as holding with their mind the faith which they had delivered to the churches

which from the beginning were eye-witnesses and ministers of the word

and priests of our Mysteries and faithful stewards. For they shake off (and that most rightly) as a patent proof of unlearning alike and extremest impiety, the mere imagining that the Word from forth God the Father has been called unto a second beginning of being or took flesh of the holy Virgin as a root of His own existence: still they call her

Mother of God,

as having borne Immanuel Who is by Nature God:

for the Word has been made with us, being God by Nature and above us. Do they therefore say contrary to what they think? For some one of those who think with thee will (I suppose) say, "If thou say that the Nature of the Word is not Offspring of the flesh, and free thyself from this charge, how dost thou affirm that the holy Virgin bare God?" But thou in turn wilt hear from us, The God-inspired Scripture says that the Word out of God the Father was made Flesh, i. e., was without confusion and Personally united to flesh: for not alien to Him is the Body which was united to Him and born of a woman, but as with each of us his body is his own, in this same way is the Body of the Only Begotten His own and none other's: for thus was He also born according to the flesh. Then how (tell me) would He have been made Flesh, except He had received birth of a woman, the laws of human nature calling Him thereto, and bodily existence being able no otherwise to have its beginning? For not (I suppose) giving heed to the juggleries of the Greeks, shall we too romance that the bodies of men are born of oak or rock: but our laws nature set us, yea rather nature's Creator, for as of each of existing things is the kin to it born, so of ourselves too, and no otherwise (how could it be?) For nought at all of what It willeth to accomplish is impracticable to the Divine and Ineffable Power, yet doth It proceed through what befits the nature of things that are, not dishonouring the laws set by Itself. And it were not impracticable to the Word That can do all things, having determined indeed for our sakes to become as we, yet to refuse the birth of a woman, and from without to fashion to Himself a body by His own Power, just as we say was done in the case of our forefather,

Adam: for

God

took (it says)

dust of the ground

and

formed man.

But since this were occasion to the unbelievers who desire to accuse the Mystery of the Incarnation, and (before all) to the unholy Manichees, whom thou sayest over and over that thou fearest lest they should spring upon those who call the holy Virgin

Mother of God,

as though they were affirming that the Incarnation of the Word existed in mere phantasy; needs did He progress

through the laws of human nature, and since His aim was to assure all that He hath become truly Man, He

took hold of the seed of Abraham,

and the blessed Virgin being the mean to this same end, He

took part like

us in

blood and flesh;

for so and no otherwise could He become

God with us.

Most needful in another way too unto those on the earth was the Incarnation or Inhumanation

of the Word. For if He had not been born as we according to the flesh, if He had not taken

part like

of the same,

He would not have freed the nature of man from the blame [contracted] in Adam, nor would He have driven away from our bodies the decay, nor would the might of the curse have ceased which we say came on the first woman; for it was said to her,

In sorrows shalt thou bring forth children.

But the nature of man hath fallen into the disease of disobedience in Adam, it has become now approved in Christ through the utter obedience: for it is written.

As by one mail's disobedience many were made sinners, so too by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.

For in Adam hath it suffered,

Dust thou

art

and unto dust shalt thou return,

in Christ hath it gained the riches of being able to be superior to the toils of death, and (so to say) to exult over decay, saying those words of the Prophet,

O death, where thy victory? o grave, where thy sting?

it became accursed, as I said, but in Christ was this too brought to nought. And verily it has been said somewhere to the holy Virgin, Elizabeth prophesying in spirit,

Blessed

art thou

among women and blessed

the fruit of thy womb.

Sin hath reigned over us and the inventor and father of sins behaved himself proudly over all beneath the skies, objecting [to them] the transgression of the Divine Laws: but in Christ we see the nature of man, as in a second firstfruits of our race, having confidence with God. For He said clearly,

The prince of this world cometh, and in Me shall find nothing.

But, good sir (would I with reason say) except the Only-Begotten had become as we, had become as we no otherwise than by means of birth in the flesh from forth a woman, WE had not been enriched with what is His. For as the most

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wise Paul writeth to us, Emmanuel

the second Adam

hath appeared to us, not from the earth like the first, but

from Heaven.

For the Word That is from above and from forth the Father hath come down not into the flesh of any one nor into alien flesh (as I already said), nor again hath He descended upon any one of those like us to dwell in him, as He was in the Prophets; but having made His own the body which was from forth a woman and born from her after the Flesh, He gathered up man's birth through Himself, made as we after the flesh, Who is before all ages from the Father. This confession of faith the Divine Scriptures delivered to us. But THOU feignest to fear lest any of us should suppose that the Word Begotten of God had the beginning of His Being from earthly flesh: thou takest away utterly the Mystery of the Economy with flesh, saying that the holy Virgin ought not to be called by us Mother of God: thou turnest round those who call her Mother of God unto a confession inevitable and as of necessity, of supposing that the Word out of God became fruit of flesh. But it is not so, far from it. For He That hath His Being of God the Father before all time (for He is the Framer of the ages), in the last times of the age, since He became Flesh, is said to have been begotten after the flesh. For if the Body is conceived of as His own, how will He not wholly and entirely appropriate the birth of His own Body? Yea yourself too would have approved the right and undefiled faith of these who thus hold, if you would have persuaded yourself to reason and to confess that Christ is truly God, the One and Only of God the Father, not severed into man separately and likewise into God, but the Same, both Word out of God the Father and Man out of woman as we, while He abideth God.

But that thou dost accuse the Birth after the flesh of the Word, every way declaring two sons and dividing the One Lord Jesus Christ, shall be shewn not by my words but by thine own.

"Look what follows, heretic. I grudge not the word to

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the Virgin mother-of-Christ, but I know that she is august who received God, through whom the Lord of all passed, and through whom the Sun of righteousness beamed. Again I suspect your applause: how did ye understand

passed through?

I have not said

passed through,

in the sense of

born,

for not so quickly do I forget my own words: that God passed through from out the Virgin mother of Christ was I taught by the Divine Scripture, that God was born from her, was I nowhere taught." And after more; "Never therefore does the Divine Scripture say that God was born of the mother of Christ, but that Jesus, Christ, Son, Lord, [was so born]."

And hereto he subjoins that Christ was not truly God, but rather a God-bearing man, as he supposes, putting forward the Angel's voice saying to blessed Joseph,

Arise take the young child,

and says that the Angels too, though wiser than we, knew that He was a child.

§2. Herein therefore he stiles heretic him who holds the right and admirable faith about Christ, and who since He is truly God, calls her mother of God who bare Him. But there will be no doubt to any of those who think aright, that it is himself who, fastening the blame of heresies on them who choose to deem aright, is establishing the unbeauty of his own words, and has all but confessed openly that he is being borne outside of the straight way, and is making crooked paths. Next how (tell me) do you not grudge this title to the holy Virgin, albeit you take away the dignity of the Divine Birth, and say that she is not

Mother of God?

but debasing the expression and affirming that it is full of blasphemy, how do you bid those who so will, to apply it to the holy Virgin (though I hear you call her august)? and then deem the so blasphemous word (as you alone think it) meet to adorn the most august one, and you feign to crown her, putting about her as some choice honour, a calumny

against God the Word? For if it be wholly abhorrent to the Word Who is sprung of God to endure fleshly birth and you permit her who did not bear God to be called Mother of God, is it not true to say that

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you have openly depised the Lord's will? will you not be caught insulting rather the august one, than (as you suppose and say) electing to honour her, by allotting to her a name hated of God? For not to those whom we determine to honour [do] we give names whereby the glory of the Supreme Nature is dishonoured, first of all we shall unawares be involving our own selves in the charge of such impiety, next we shall do them no slight wrong, decking as if in honour those we praise with what is no praise, and weaving for them a laudation hated of God.

One may moreover marvel at this too: that striking right and left at the words of the unholy heretics and in no wise allowing them to prevail, because they take away the truth of the Divine doctrines, next allotting no slight blame to the word Mother of God and accusing it amongst other things as untrue and impious, you said that you pardon it and will not grudge it to the Virgin even if one should choose to call her Mother of God. Will you permit it therefore to those too who are diseased with the madness of Arius, to say that the Son is inferior to the Father? or again to the rest who bring down the Nature of the Holy Ghost from its God-befitting excellency? But you would not choose to do this; and if any one desire to learn why, you will (I suppose) surely say, I do not endure a blasphemous word. Hence if she be not Mother of God, and you permit this to be said, know that you are deserting the truth, and reck little about any longer appearing wise. For do you not say that Elisabeth too or any other of the holy women is worthy of all reverence? will you then not grudge it, if any one choose to call them too

mothers of God?

But I suppose that you will surely and utterly withstand them and say, This is not so; for they bare sanctified men and none among them was God by Nature. Hence either drive away this from every woman; or if you allow the holy Virgin alone among all to have it, what words will you use for your defence? For if it be true of her and she has truly borne God, in that the Word of God has been made flesh, confess this with us, and you will free yourself

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from the charge of impiety: but if she hath not borne God, to permit any to call her Mother of God is to partake of their impiety. But she is Mother of God, because the Only-Begotten has been made man as we, united of a truth to flesh, and enduring fleshly birth and not dishonouring the laws of our nature, as I said before.

But since he says that he knows that she, i.e. the holy Virgin, is august, come I pray come let us consider the reason too of the reverence that was done her: "for I know (he says) that she is august

, through whom the Lord of all passed, through whom the Sun of righteousness beamed." How then do you say that she received God? or in what way did the Lord of all pass through her? or how beamed the Sun of righteousness? For if she hath not borne God, after the flesh I mean, how received she God? how passed He through her? But haply you will say this wise word of yours as you think and dare to speak it " The Word was God both connected with man and indwelling him." But the tradition of the faith makes itself ready against your words as to this, No God-bearing man, but God Incarnate have we been taught to worship: but not so speakest THOU: how then do you not see that you are babbling and falsely marking the truth that is in the Divine dogmas? For the Word has been made flesh. How did you now say that she received God except you have believed that she hath borne Emmanuel Who is God by Nature? how passed the Lord of all through her and how beamed the Sun of righteousness? And who is he that you think fit to embellish by such names? is he a common man, like one of us, yet hallowed, as having the Word of God indwelling? Then how will such an one be Lord of all, and Sun of righteousness? For the power of lordship and dominion over all and of illumining things possessing intelligence, will pertain not to our measures, but will be attributed to the Supreme and Most High Nature alone.

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But since taking (I know not whence) the word

passed through,

you have applied it to God, explain the word; the meaning of the

passage through

here spoken of, will belong to your wisdom to tell us who know it not. For if the Word of God so passed through her, as to pass from one place to another, you cast Him down forthwith; for you will hear Him saying by the voice of the saints,

not I fill Heaven and earth saith the Lord?

For not in place is the Godhead nor knoweth It bodily changes of place, for it filleth all things. But if while awaiting the fit period of birth, He made an incidental indwelling in man, and so you say that God made passage through the holy Virgin, or

passed through

her (for I will use in all thy holy words): we see nought in the holy Virgin more than in other women. For Elisabeth bare the blessed Baptist who had been hallowed through the Spirit through Whom the Son Himself also makes His abode in us. And the wise John will witness saying,

Hereby know we that He is in us, because He gave us of His Spirit.

The Word of God therefore passed through Elisabeth herself too, indwelling in the babe through the Spirit even before its birth.

But you feel suspicious of the applause as though it came to you from the people for having chosen to speak right things? for having called Him Who was born of the holy Virgin Sun of righteousness and Lord of all; you then again feign to speak with precision, and find fault with the applause, and accuse again those who are rejoicing over you of not having understood. O great strength which is in your words! you have made no delay in the needed vexing of them, you turned straightway their joy into mourning, you rent off their rejoicing and girt them with sackcloth, straightway adding, "Again I suspect your applause, how did ye understand passed through? I have not said

passed through

in the sense of

was born,

for not so quickly do I forget my own words. That God passed through from out the Virgin Mother of Christ, was I taught by the Divine Scriptures, that God was born of her, was I nowhere taught."

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Those therefore are thy perverted sayings; the applause was of love, in that your mind had some guise of orthodoxy. But I will press on now too no less and say, What is

passed through,

if it mean not birth? will you say that the Word out of God Himself by Himself and apart from flesh hastened through the Virgin? yet how would not this be replete

with all folly? For it would be necessary to suppose that the Godhead were recipient of quantity

and of movement

which bears from one place to another; or if the Godhead be unembodied, at large and everywhere, and not in place and

circumscript, how will it pass through a single body? But whatever it be that you are saying, how do you not need to clear it up and say it more openly, if confident in your own opinions about it, you are able to testify to their incorruption? where (I pray) have you heard the God-inspired Scripture say that the Word of God passed through the holy Virgin? For that brief and contracted is the life of those upon earth, the blessed David taught saying,

Man,

I

his days as grass, as a flower of the field so he flourisheth; for the wind passeth through him and he shall not be,

but of

the holy Virgin what thing of this sort can you say has been written? That God has been born of her, after the flesh I mean, God-inspired Scripture has clearly shewn.

But I will go again to your own words, O all-excellent, for you have yourself too confessed and this most often that the Word has been made Flesh, and you reject it not. And this too you say besides: for you say that the Godhead of the Only-Begotten was clearly and openly Incarnate. You have written in this wise,

"Thus it says elsewhere too,

He spoke to us in His Son Whom He appointed Heir of all things through Whom also He made the worlds, Who being the Brightness of His Glory:

having put Son, it calls Him fearlessly both

Brightness of His Glory,

and appointed

Heir; Heir,

appointed after the Flesh,

Brightness of the

Father's

Glory

after the Godhead: for He departed not, made flesh, from likeness to the Father. And in addition it again says thus,

for the times of

ignorance God winked at, but now commandeth all men to repent, because He fixed a Day in which He will judge

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the world by the Man Whom He appointed, having given assurance unto all men in that He raised Him from the dead.

Having first said,

By the Man,

he then adds,

In that He raised Him from the dead,

that no one might suppose that the Godhead Incarnate had died."

§3. Who then is He Who was Incarnate, or in what way was He incarnate, what Godhead was incarnate, tell (O most excellent sir) to us who would learn it. Shall we grant that the Word, God out of God, was Incarnate, and say that He was made Man, as having been made as we and born in flesh? or shall we allow this in no wise, but suppose that a man came hereto, connected with God, according to thee? But you will (I suppose) say, that it is better and wise to think that the Word out of God was Incarnate and made flesh, according to the Scriptures: for one is not I suppose seen assuming that wherein one is, but if one come somehow to be in that wherein one was not at first, reason will forthwith admit that something new has been wrought regarding him. Hence it is unlearned to say that any of us having stepped forth of the definitions of human nature have been incarnate and been made flesh; but the Incarnation, or being made flesh, will beseem (and that with much reason) the Nature That is beyond humanity. But if He was truly Incarnate and has been made flesh, He is accredited as Man, and not connected with a man, by mere indwelling or external relation or connection, as you say. Yet even though He became Man, He possesseth the being God in all security, nor do we say that any change took place of the flesh into the Nature of Godhead, and we hold that neither did the reverse take place, for the nature of the Word hath remained what it is even when united to flesh. What no one therefore even in bare idea thinks of holding, why do you putting this in your book, as though actually uttered, pretend to be contending for the doctrines of piety? For the name

mixture,

some of the holy fathers too have put: but since you say that you are afraid lest any confusion be deemed to take place, as in the case of liquids mingled with one another, I rid you from your fears,

|17

for not so did they deem (how could they?) but they used the word improperly, anxious to declare the extreme union

of the things that had come together; and we say that the Word of God came together with His proper Flesh, in union indissoluble and unalterable. And we find that the God-inspired Scripture itself too, does not look minutely into the word, but uses it rather improperly and simply. And verily the Divine Paul hath written of some,

But the Word preached did not profit them, who wore not mixed

in faith with its hearers.

Were they of whom he spoke going to be mixed one with another, after this fashion, as wine with water, and to undergo a confusion of persons, or were they rather to be united in soul, as it is written in the Acts of the holy Apostles,

And of the multitude of them that believed was the heart and the soul one?

But this I suppose is the truth, not the other. Be free then from all fear on this score, for firmly established is the mind of the saints.

But since to say that the Nature of the Word was Incarnate is (I deem) nought else than to hold that It has been made Man and not without birth of woman (for this only way does the nature of human bodies know of), how were you not taught by the God-inspired Scripture the Birth after the flesh of the Only-Begotten? albeit yourself too, when the prophetic lessons were before you,

Unto us a Child was horn, unto us a Son was given,

say thus of the Child that was born, " Great the mystery of the gift, for this is the Babe That is seen, this the new-born That appears, this that needed bodily swaddling bands, this the just-born after the Essence that is seen, in the hidden part

Everlasting Son, Son Creator of all, Son Who by the swaddling-bands of His own aid binds the instability of the creation. " And elsewhere again, " And the Babe

|18

is God All-free, so far removed is God the Word, O Arius, from being subject to God." In which words he styled even the body connected with Him God. And again, We recognise therefore the human nature of the Babe and His Godhead, we preserve the oneness of the Sonship in the nature of manhood and Godhead. " Lo here with all clearness you say that the Babe, the just-born, the visible, the new-born, the swaddled, is Son and Creator of all; and the Babe the holy Virgin hath borne to us. You know therefore that God has been born after the flesh, and this you have learnt out of the God-inspired Scripture. For who will be conceived to be Creator of all, save He alone through Whom the Father hath made all?

But I said (you will haply say) " in the secret part Son and Creator of all." Well, I agree, but I will ask you: You say that the hidden is the Word of God and that this is the Creator of all: how then did you but now point out as with your finger the Babe just-born and new-born and in swaddling clothes, and called this same both Son of God and Creator of all? or do you haply suppose that the Word out of God has been transformed into the nature of the flesh, and accuse yourself, not others, of daring to say this? Surely if the Babe be the hidden Son and Creator of all, and have been born of the holy Virgin, you have acknowledged with us even against your will that she is Mother of God in some unlooked-for way, since how is a babe God all-free? For if you use the word, all-free

in the sense in which each one of us too may be so conceived, as entrusted by God with the reins of his own free-will, what is there special in Him beyond the rest? or why do you put about Him the freedom, as some God-befitting and truly choice Dignity? albeit it is in the power of all upon the earth to possess it and indeed they already have it. But if the freedom here signify the being not subject to the laws of another, and He be free in such sort as the Divine Nature itself too is conceived of, how do you say that the new-born Babe is in case so august and befitting only the Supreme Nature and glory? albeit that all which is called into being

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is subject unto God and runs under the yoke of bondage. But you will perchance deem that that empty word

|20

yours suffices unto all this, that I mean in respect of the natures being connected one with another, and that, not Personally, but rather in honour unvarying [in each] and equality of rank: for this is what you are always unlearnedly saying to us. But that in saying such things, you will be caught to be staying yourself upon rotten and fragile conceptions, will be shewn and not at length, when opportunity offers to us to speak upon this too.

But to these he subjoins some others by which he deems that he can shew and that skillfully that the mode of a generation like ours is unmeet and impossible. And our words he arrays against himself, and deems that he can over-master them easily and shew that they are nothing although they set forth the truth. He says thus:

"'If Christ (says he

) be God, and Christ be born of the blessed Mary, how is not the Virgin mother of God?' I hide none of their objections: for the lover of the truth takes and objects to himself all that comes of the

|21

falsehood;" and then he endeavours to apply the solution, using some such conceptions as these. " For the babe (he says) is formed in the womb, but so long as it have not yet been formed, it hath no soul, but being formed at length, it has a soul made it of God. As then the woman bears the body, God ensouls it,

and the woman is not called mother of soul, because she bare a man endowed with soul, but rather mother of man, so (he says) the blessed Virgin too, even though she have borne a man, the Word of God passing forth along with him" (for this word did he use) "not therefore is she mother of God."

§4. Is therefore (tell me) that blamed by you which is said by us? does it seem right to you without understanding to find fault with what is so rightly and purely said, and do you not rather attach the blame of not being able to think aright to your own understanding? For they to whom the truth is repugnant, to them will belong (and too readily) the receptivity of what is not so, and the rebuke of those who are wont to speak most excellently, will not be without its harm, yea rather will be even a manifest demonstration of the having declined unto falsehood and of choosing to honour what it would be more right to hate, in that one has missed of right reason. But no man, having conceived of things so base. . .

, he said that himself was the lover of the truth, and that we had contrived the lie; albeit one may see on the contrary that ours is right and true. For the advocate of the lie and fraud endeavours to fasten the blame of his falsehood on the champions of the truth, haply driven to forgetfulness of the Prophet who says,

Woe unto them that call evil good and good evil, that put darkness for light and light for darkness.

But I will endeavour to shew by the example adduced by him that he does not even clearly know what he is saying. For flesh confessedly is born of flesh, and the Artificer of all performs the ensouling in the mode and way that He knows. Yet is the woman who bears, albeit

|22

she is the source of the flesh only, believed to bear the whole man, made up (I mean) of soul and body, although she contribute nothing of her own to the being of the soul. Yet when one says

man,

one signifies surely the soul united to the body. As therefore the woman, albeit she bear the body alone, is said to bear him that is made up of soul and body, and this no wise damages the account of the soul, as though it found in flesh the origin of its being; so will you conceive as to the blessed Virgin too: for even though she be mother of the holy Flesh, she hath nevertheless borne God the Word out of God truly united thereto

, and though any call her Mother of God, he will not be defining a more recent beginning

of God the Word nor that the flesh hath been made the commencement of His Being: but will understand rather the mode of the economy and wondering at it will say,

O Lord, I have heard Thy hearing and was afraid, I considered Thy works and was

astonished.

Bat our all-wise and prudent expounder, having pondered the force of the example says, "Thus the holy Virgin, too, even though she hath borne man, God the Word passing along with him, yet not therefore is she Mother of God: for not from the blessed Virgin was the Dignity of the Word, but He was God by Nature."

What therefore is the meaning of, that the Word passed forth along with the flesh, he alone knows, but I marvel

much at his subtil refinement. For the word of truth

|23

sets forth that the Word of God has been Personally united to the Flesh; and he keeps affirming the passing forth along with, meaning I know not what. Next, when our

discussion was all about nature and Personal Union, and aimed at enquiring not what the Word out of God is in respect to Dignity, but whether He has been made Man economically, making His own the flesh born of a woman: he removing the question to quite other matters says, "Not from the holy Virgin was the Dignity of the Word, but He was God by Nature:" albeit how are not Dignity and Nature two entirely different things? But our discourse hereupon does not need overmuch skill

: we must therefore see what comes next. For he fortifies yet another outpost against what has been said by us, as he thinks invincible and competent to shew with all force that the Birth out of woman of Emmanuel is empty talk of ours: he says again thus,

"The blessed John Baptist is fore-heralded by the holy Angels, that the babe

shall be filled with the Holy Ghost even from his mother's womb,

and having the Holy Ghost, was this blessed Baptist born. What then? call you Elizabeth mother of the Spirit? apply your mind here, although there be some among you who are startled at what is said, pardon their inexperience."

§5. And who on hearing such words will not straightway say in Prophet's voice,

For the fool will utter folly and his heart will conceive vanity, to accomplish iniquity and to utter error against the Lord?

For error confessedly is it and nought else, to trust in such frigid and childish thoughts as though they were true. One may then marvel at him for his gentleness, for he said that they ought to be esteemed worthy of pardon and clemency who had no acquaintance with those words of his: yet were it a thing thrice-longed for by us ourselves (if so be), yea rather by all too who are Christians; for how should not all long to be rid from words so burdensome and perverse? But we say this:

|24

Elizabeth hath confessedly borne the blessed Baptist anointed in the womb with the Holy Ghost: and if it had been any where said by the God-inspired Scriptures, that the Spirit too was made flesh, rightly would you have said that she ought to be called by us mother of the Spirit; but if the bairn is said to have been honoured with bare anointing only, why deem you it right to put the fact of incarnation on an equal footing with the grace of participation? for it is not the same thing, to say that the Word was made flesh and that one has been anointed through the Spirit with prophetic spirit. For of the holy Virgin it is written,

Behold a Virgin shall conceive and bear a Son,

and He

who is born is called the fruit and moreover Emmanuel,

which being interpreted is, God with us;

but of Elizabeth,

she shall bear a son

who

shall go before Him in the spirit and power of Elias,

and

shall go before the face of the

Lord to prepare His ways.

By no means therefore is Elizabeth mother of the Spirit, for she bare a

prophet of the Highest:

but the holy Virgin is truly mother of God

, for she hath borne carnally, i. e., according to the flesh, God united to flesh. For since she is human who bare, therefore and rightly do we say that the mode of generation has been wrought in human wise; for thus and no otherwise was it possible that He Who is over all nature could become as we, not slighting the being what He is (how could He?) but rather abiding what He was and is and will be: for superior to change is the Divine and Most High Nature.

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That we therefore think aright in affirming that God has been born according to the flesh for the salvation of all,.. God-inspired Scripture hath testified: but since to his most novel dogmas he opposes the truth and the very symbol of the Church's Faith, which the fathers once gathered together at Nicea through the illumination of the Spirit defined; he, fearing lest any should keep whole the Faith, instructed unto the Truth by their words, endeavours to calumniate it and alters the significance of the words, and dares to coin with false stamp

the very force of its ideas. For while himself in the midst of the Church was using profane babblings, a certain man

of those who were of

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great piety and yet among the laity, but who had gathered within himself no mean learning, was moved with fervent and devout zeal and with piercing cry

said that the Word Himself Who is before the ages endured a second Generation also, viz., that after the flesh and forth of a woman; the people being disturbed hereat, and the more part and wiser having honoured him with no mean praises, as pious and most full of wisdom and not imparticipate in uprightness of doctrine, the rest being mad against him, he [Nestorius] interrupting, straightway approves those whom by teaching his own he had destroyed, and whets his tongue against him who could not endure his words, yea and against the holy fathers who have decreed for us the pious

definition of the Faith

which we have as an anchor of the soul both sure and steadfast,

as it is written.

"For (said he) I rejoice at beholding your zeal; but from the thing itself is a clear confutation of what has been said by the pollution of this wretched

man

; for whereof the births are two, two sons are they, but the Church knoweth one Son Christ the Lord."

§6. Most foolishly therefore put he forth the definition of his ideas on this matter saying, "for whereof the births are two two sons are they." But letting alone for a while his subtil accuracy herein, come, come let us gather what pertains to accurate investigation for the consideration of the matter. He therefore made it inadmissible [to speak of

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two generations

] but says that one ought to be confessed by us, that we conceive not of two sons (as though it were necessary if the births be two, that two sons also should be introduced): let him come forward and tell us which of the generations he will admit, that before the ages from out the Father, wherein the Word was God not yet Incarnate, or this one, recent and out of a woman.

If then he say that alone, I mean the one before the ages from out the Father, that one alone will be Son Who is out of Him by Nature and not yet participate of flesh and blood: and vainly (as it seems) is the Mystery of the Incarnation uttered, and in no wise hath He emptied Himself nor been made in servant's form, but hath remained thus, rejecting the true concurrence with flesh even until now. But he who is in the last times out of woman, shall be styled by himself son, and we will admit this one generation, I mean out of woman; needs has the Word out of God the Father fallen away from being by Nature Son.

But the pious man sees full surely the absurdity of such ideas and its exceeding swerving unto impiety. In order then that we may proceed along the royal road, we say. that two were the Births, one the Son through both, the Word out of God not yet made in flesh, the Same afterwards Incarnate and enduring for us the birth of a woman after the flesh. For if one said in regard of men that two sons must surely be conceived of, if we speak of two births, he would say rightly and it would be true; but since the Mystery of Christ and the mode of the Incarnation hath another path, and is not beheld in like wise with what is ours, why is he, looking at our habits, and then fastening his mind on what is marvellous and above speech, caught fall ing into feeblest and unlearned pettiness of belief? What surprises me is this: he confessing herein that the Church knows one Son, and adding, The Lord Christ, hath no longer kept One, for he sunders one from another things united, and putteth each apart, not enquiring what the

|28

Word is by Nature, what the flesh also; but gathering rather into one, man and God in equality of glory only, as he deemeth, which is a thing utterly implausible, yea rather impossible, he casts down the scheme of the mystery unto uncomeliness. Thus he saith:

"But we must (for it has now come into my mind) learn that the Synod of Nicea too nowhere durst say that God was born of Mary; for it said,

We believe in One

God the Father Almighty and in One Lord Jesus Christ.

Observe that having first put the word

Christ,

which is the indication of the two natures, they did not say, in one God the Word, but took the name that signifies both, in order that when lower down you hear of death, you think it not strange; in order that the words

crucified

and

buried

may not strike the ear as though the Godhead suffered these things." Then it goes on,

"We believe in One Lord Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son, the Begotten out of the Father, the Consubstantial with the Father, Who came down from the heavens for our sakes, and was Incarnate of the Holy Ghost.

They said not, and begotten of the Holy Ghost." And he says that the holy fathers interpreting what is the meaning of

Incarnate

say,

Made Man.

And what being

made Man

means he himself making clear, said again, "His own Nature not undergoing change into flesh, but inhabitation in man. "

§7. Will any one of those who rank as Christians endure either the infatuation that there is in these words or the impiety of his ideas? To those of really sound mind are not these things a manifest ribaldry, and no mean kind of openmouthedness against Christ? for he slanders the truth, he says that He is not truly Son, allotting this to another (for " observe, he says, that having first put the word Christ which is the indication of the two natures, they did not say, We believe in One God the Word)." And as regards the Name, I mean

Christ

I will presently enquire whether it be significative of the two Natures or

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not, but what is before us we will exercise ourselves in, as we can. For in no wise to be borne may those things be that are so absurdly and heedlessly babbled forth by him, but one might (I deem) say, speaking in behalf of the holy fathers, What art thou doing, noble sir, putting forth rude tongue against holy men, to whom will beseem that which was said by Christ Himself the Saviour of us all,

It is not

YE

that speak, but the Spirit of your Father Which speaketh

in you?

for what has there not been conceived of by them of things exceeding well polished unto an admirable subtilty? what of needful doctrines has been overlooked, or what method of safeguard neglected by them? " They have not dared (he says) insert in their words concerning the Faith that God the Word was born of Mary." If therefore thou for this reason accuse those who have been before us, and sayest thou art aggrieved because they are not found to use thy exact words, it is time (I suppose) to accuse along with them the holy Apostles and Evangelists too, for they have compiled the books of instruction

concerning Christ, yet one will not find them using word for word your expressions. But (if it please you) pass

this over as

........but consider rather that they have

well wrought out their explanation of this matter, for faith in the Holy and Consubstantial Trinity is exacted of us. But since they say that they believe

in One God the Father

Almighty

Maker of all things both visible and invisible, and in One Lord Jesus Christ His Son,

and none other (according to us) is Jesus Christ the Lord than the One and by Nature and truly Son, Who beaming from out of God and being God the Word has been made Man, by birth (that is) out of

woman, how will they who proclaim the mode of the economy not be found to speak also of His Birth of a woman after the flesh? for then in truth has the Word which is God and Wisdom and Life and Light, the Son, been named Christ Jesus. It is manifest therefore that the time of such naming has

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concurrent with it the Birth, that I mean through the holy-Virgin. That believing on Christ Jesus, we believe in the One and by Nature and truly Son, our faith mounting up unto the Father through Him, will be clear, in that He Himself hath cried aloud to the whole world,

that believeth on Me believeth not on Me but on Him that sent Me, and he that seeth Me seeth Him that sent Me,

and again,

Believe on God, and believe on Me.

And we do not

(I suppose) say that He asks of us two faiths, but rather He teaches that if any admit the faith to Himward, he hath believed on the Father Himself.

But since (as is probable) he will be making use of the community of the names, saying that Christ and Lord, yea and Son, are common titles, and will be affirming that they suit the Word That sprung of the Father even though He be conceived of as alone and not yet participate of flesh, and likewise the Temple that sprang of a virgin, this matter needs (I think) considerable investigation: putting it off' for the present to a season (as I said) fitly belonging to it, let us go to another utterance of the holy Synod which this man perverting unto his own liking, does violence to the force of truth. For he says that the fathers

have written,

We believe in One Lord Jesus Christ, the Only-Begotten Son, the Begotten from forth the Father, the Consubstantial with the Father, Who came down for our sakes, and was Incarnate of the Holy Ghost.

He adds hereto

and says of che holy fathers, " lower down they interpret that He who

was made man,

He it is who is said to be

Incarnate,

the Divine Nature not enduring change into flesh but inhabitation in man." In his explanation he again keeps hold of the same mind and moreover says thus;

"They followed the Evangelist, for the Evangelist too when he comes to the being made man, shunned saying Birth in respect of God the Word, and hath put Incarnation. Where? Hear,

And the Word was made flesh;

he said

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not, Was born through the flesh. For where the Apostles or the Evangelists make mention of the Son, they put that He was born of a woman. Give heed to what is said, I beseech you; for where they utter the name of the Son, and that He was borne from forth a woman, they put the word, Born; where they mention the Word, no one of them durst speak of birth through the human nature. For the blessed John the Evangelist, when he came to the Word and to His Incarnation, hear what he says,

The Word was made flesh."

§8. Come therefore putting beside what he said, the definition of our Creed, let us see if ought has been innovated by this man regarding it too.

W

E BELIEVE IN ONE

G

OD THE

F

ATHER ALMIGHTY, MAKER OF ALL THINGS VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE, AND IN ONE LORD

J

ESUS

C

HRIST, THE SON OF

G

OD, BEGOTTEN OUT OF THE

F

ATHER, ONLY-BEGOTTEN THAT IS OUT OF HIS ESSENCE,

G

OD OUT OF

G

OD LIGHT OUT OF LIGHT VERY

G

OD OUT OF VERY

G

OD, BEGOTTEN NOT MADE, CONSUBSTANTIAL WITH THE

F

ATHER, THROUGH WHOM ALL THINGS WERE MADE, BOTH THOSE IN HEAVEN AND THOSE ON EARTH: WHO FOR US MEN AND FOR OUR SALVATION CAME DOWN AND WAS INCARNATE AND MADE MAN, SUFFERED AND ROSE THE THIRD DAY, ASCENDED INTO THE HEAVENS, COMETH TO JUDGE QUICK AND DEAD, AND IN THE HOLY GHOST.

Come now therefore, noble sir, where (tell me) have they put of the Son,

Incarnate of the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary

but this he can by no means shew. But

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consider this. They say that the Word out of God, the Only-Begotten, He That is from forth the Essence of the Father, He through Whom are all things, the Very Light, was both incarnate and made man, suffered and rose, and too, that He will in season come again the Judge.

But in order that submitting to accurate scrutiny his words also, we may see what is the amount of the unlearning that is in them, he affirms in plain terms that they say that the Word out of God was both incarnate and made man, and he crowns them with his vote unto their truth as saying what was convenient. Do they therefore (tell me) in saying that He was both Incarnate and made Man mean ought else than that He was begotten after the flesh? for this would be (and alone) the mode of incarnation to one who has his existence both external to flesh and in his proper nature; for no one would say (I suppose) that flesh has been made flesh nor will any one be made what he was [already]. But if one should conceive a certain economic change to have been made regarding him unto somewhat else which he was not, the expression will then have great fitness. Hence if they say that the Only-Begotten has been Incarnate, and this would be wrought (I suppose) through fleshly generation and in no other way, how have they not plainly said that the Word being God has been begotten after the flesh?

But (he says) the Birth is not named in plain terms. Yes, but the nature of the thing knows (as I already said) no other way of being incarnate. So that, although it be not in plain terms said in matters of this kind, we will not for this, forsaking the only way recognized by nature, go off to another. For it is written in the Book of Genesis,

And to Seth there was made a son, and he called his name Enos.

Shall we then, because the Scripture has put,

was made,

not admit the mode of birth? how would not this be

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unlearned? for the very nature of the thing will all but compel us even against our will to confess the idea of birth. How then on hearing of the Incarnation does he not forthwith admit the idea of Birth? and when the being made man has been plainly mentioned, how did he not straightway understand, that being made man would befit not a man, lest he should seem to be made that he already was, but the Word originating from God? But where being made man is believed to truly take place, there is full surely the birth whereby he may be seen to be made man.

But not thus does it seem to you is the saying to be conceived of, that the Word of God was both Incarnate and was made Man; for you said again, endeavouring to oppose the idea of every one else, that the being made man, means, not the change into flesh of the Divine Nature

, but its indwelling in man. He says then that the conversion into flesh of the Divine Nature is both impossible and that it in no wise befalls it (and very rightly, for we will approve him who herein has chosen to speak aright; for I say that It is stable and that It will not be transformed into ought else than what It is believed to be): but that his discourse hath missed of the fitting and true, in that

|34

he maintained that the being made Man is the indwelling in man, I shall essay to shew. For if he says that this matter is true of Emmanuel singly and alone, let him teach the reason why (for I cannot learn it), or no one will tolerate him as a definer and layer down of the law in respect of those things as to which he is pleased to speak inconsiderately. But perchance the force of the things defined does not extend unto one [alone], there will then be no blame, even though it extend unto all. Hence not once for all but many times over shall we find that God has been made man, and not only the Word out of God the Father, but I will add both the Father Himself and besides, the Holy Ghost. For He said through one of the holy Prophets of them that have been justified in faith,

I will dwell in them and walk in

them

and I will be their God and they shall be My people.

And Christ Himself also said, And if any man hear Me,

we will come

I

and My Father and make Our abode with him and lodge in him

The most wise Paul too hath somewhere written,

And Moses was faithful in all his house as a servant, for a testimony of the things which were to be spoken of, but Christ as a Son over Bis own house whose house are

WE; and moreover of the Holy Ghost too,

Know ye not that ye are the temple of God and

that

the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?

Hence if when the God of all is said to dwell in any, if this be the being made man or the incarnation, let it be said in respect of each one also of those who were made

partakers of the Divine Nature

and have moreover had Him indwelling them, that he has both been made man and besides was incarnate. This now being so and admitted as true, the Word out of God the Father might even be said to have been most often made flesh, yea and He indwelleth even now in many of those who fear Him.

Yea (he says) for it is written of God the Word, that He

tabernacled in us

; the Divine-uttering Paul too said of Christ the Saviour of us all, that

in Him

hath dwelt

all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.

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tabernacled in us

confessedly, for so it is written; and moreover that He hath dwelt: I will not oppose you saying it, but rather will I search into the words of the Divines. For the blessed Evangelist, having aforesaid,

And the Word was made flesh,

profitably added too the,

tabernacled in us,

that by means of both he might work in us unmutilated the knowledge of the mystery Christward. For that the Word out of God the Father was united Personally to flesh, he hath openly declared

by saying that He

was made flesh:

that

made flesh,

He hath not passed into the nature of flesh, undergoing change into what He was not, but together with becoming as we, hath abode what He was, he again clearly states, adding to the former, the

tabernacled in us.

And the Divine-uttering Paul saith that

Christ dwelt

all the fullness of the Godhead bodily,

that no one might suppose that the Indwelling was simple or accidental but (as I said just now) Very and Personal. For that the Word of God is Incorporeal and not subject to touch, the Spirit-clad was not ignorant; but since it was needful that the declaration of the mystery should be seen to be in no wise a matter of blame, but should be made so accurate and exact unto what is right and true as to be beyond all marvel:----he is doing violence (it seems)

and all but overlooking what befits the Unembodied and Supreme Nature, for he hath added,

Bodily,

being able in no other way to speak than may be attained by our mind and tongue.

Do not therefore, when he tells us of simple indwelling, think that he is saying ought that needs not the strongest reprobation. For overthrowing as he thinks and that with vigour the birth according to the flesh of the Son, he

|36

compounds an argument befitting old wives and foolish and having no foundation of truth. For he writes again after this manner; his discourse was made touching the Arians:

"Yet

though

they

prate that God the Word is junior to the greater Godhead, these make Him second to the blessed Mary, and over the Godhead, Creator of times, they set a mother born in time, yea rather they do not even allow that she who bare Christ is mother of Christ. For if not the nature of man but God the Word was, as these say, that which is of her, she that bare was no mother of that which was born. For how will any one be mother of him who is alien from her nature? But if she be called mother by them, that which is born is manhood not Godhead, for it is the property of every mother to bear what is consubstantial [with her]. Either then she will not be mother, not bearing what is consubstantial with herself, or being called mother by them, she bare that which was in essence like to herself."

§9. How deep the matter of his cogitations! dread and hard to escape is clearly the compulsion resulting from the reasonings of him who hath compiled such things! Whence comes he having gathered into the midst unto us such fables? or who ever sank down to this extent of unlearning in his conceptions, as to think or say that the Godhead of the Only-Begotten has not its existence before the ages from the Father but rather makes flesh and blood the beginning of its passing into being? who is so distraught and slight of understanding

and wholly without ear for the holy Scriptures? who remembereth hot Isaiah who hath

cried aloud of Him,

Who shall declare His generation?

John too who hath written clearly,

In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God; all things were made through Him and without Him was not any

thing made?

And if all things through Him, how will He Who is before every age and time be later in birth than

|37

the things that were made through Him? why then do you bring in what is repudiated by all, as though it had been said? cease accusing those who rightly blame what you say, and who laugh at the vastness of the unlearning that is therein. Since therefore there is no one who says that the Virgin hath borne from forth her own flesh the nature of the Godhead, do not contend to no purpose, twining for us reasonings not made out of premises that are true and acknowledged by all.

But what was it that persuaded you to let loose a tongue so sheer and unguarded against those who are zealous to think aright, and to pour down accusal dire and all-cruel upon every worshipper of God? For you said again in Church,

"But I have already full often said that if any simpler one either among us or any other, rejoice in the word Mother of God, I have no grudge against the word; only let him not make the Virgin a goddess."

§10. Again dost thou rail upon us, and put on a mouth so bitter? and reproachest

the congregation of the Lord,

as it is written? But WE, my friend, who call her mother of God, have never at all deified any one of those that are numbered among creatures, but are accustomed to know as God the One and by Nature and truly so: and we know that the blessed Virgin was woman as we. But thyself wilt be caught, and that at no long interval, representing to us Emmanuel as a God-bearing man, and putting upon another the condemnation due to your own essays.

[A small selection of footnotes and marginalia, omitting

all biblical references, follows]

τρόφιμοι

, reared up,

unless it be an

error of the single Manuscript which has preserved to us this work for the usual

δόκιμοι

, approved.

For the

citation itself see Translation of S. Cyril's homilies on S. Luke by the Very Rev. R. P. Smith, p. 149 note y.

The Greek as it stands is hardly translateable.

ἐκ

See "on the clause

And the Son,

in regard to the Eastern Church and the Bonn Conference," Oxford 1870. pp.128 sqq.

The words,

who received God,

alluded to immediately after, appear to have dropped out of the single existent Manuscript. The passage is one of those cited before the council of Ephesus (Act.

i. t. iii. 1064 ed. Col.), and translated by Marius Mercator, p. 202 ed. Bal. Mercator seems to translate less correctly,

conceived.

5. Serm. 2. p. 59 Bal.

This word

συνάπτω

and its noun

συνάφεια

S. Cyril had used long before to express the kind of Union which Christ gives us with Himself. S. Cyril says, "For as elsewhere He says that He is a

Vine, we the branches,

shewing that not alien nor of other kind are the branches from the Vine but of it by nature, so here He says that He is our

foundation

(1 Cor. iii. 11) in order to shew the natural kindship to Him when He was made man, of them which are built upon Him. For then are we

connected

(...)

with Him by nature too, and suspended as it were from our relation to Him as the branches from the vine, we bear the fruit of piety to God-ward," Thes. cap. 15. p. 171 c d. "If on receiving Christ's Spirit we are through It brought near to God the Father, as made partakers of His Divine Nature, how is It a thing made, through

which

we are connected

(...)

with God as being now His offspring?" Thes. cap. 34 p. 360 D. And in his treatise de Trinitate written more than five years before this date, S. Cyril says, "Nor could human nature any otherwise have been partaker of the Divine Nature, had it not gained this through the Son as Mediator, receiving it as a natural (...)

mode of

connection

(...),"

Dial,

i. p. 406 a: "we are temples of the Spirit Who existeth and is, we are called therefore gods as being participant with the Divine and Ineffable Nature, by connection (...)

with It," Dial. 7 p. 639 fin. Of God the SON's union with His human nature, S. Cyril says, "But that the SON was Lord, before His concurrence with flesh and His

connection

therewith through union

(...)

we shall see without any trouble," Dial. 6. p. 605 d. S. Cyril then used the word to denote our union with Christ in which our own personality is preserved to us entire. When he speaks of the Incarnation in which God the Son's human nature was so made His own, by Union with Him, as to have no distinct or separate personality, S. Cyril uses

connection by way of union,

a connection that makes the Two natures but One.

Nestorius on the other hand following his own earlier teaching speaks of a connection between God the Son and His human nature no closer than that of any holy person with Christ.

The

empty word

is found in the creed against which Charisius priest and steward of the Church in Philadelphia

brought a complaint before the Council of Ephesus (t. iii. 1205 sqq. ed. Col.), and of which Marius Mercator gives a Latin Translation (see

On the Clause

And the Son, pp. 76, 77 and note): he gives it at pp. 41 sqq. ed. Baluz. with the heading,

Now the setting forth of the corrupt faith of the above mentioned Theodore,

and further on, pp. 186 sqq. when giving the session that was holden about Charisius, he gives it over again in a slightly different translation with the heading

Nestorian Creed.

This Theodore to whom it is attributed was a contemporary of S. Chry-sostom about half a century before and was Bishop of Mopsuestia in Cilicia.

To this empty word S. Cyril opposed his

Personal Union

(...)

Fleury (Eccl.

Hist. Bk. 25 § 8 fin.) speaks of, as the first place in which he has met the expression S. Cyril's 2nd Letter (the first (Ecumenical Letter) to Nestorius in which he says, "The Word having united to Himself Personally flesh ensouled with a rational soul" (see 3 Epistles Parker 1872 p. 56). In the final Letter which S. Cyril and his Council of Alexandria wrote A. D. 430 to Nestorius were appended 12 Anathemas which Nestorius was required to sign (3 Epistles p. 68). These Anathemas or Chapters were much misunderstood by John Archbishop of Antioch, and his suffragans in

Cilicia, Palestine, Euphratesia &c, who thought that they contained Apollinarian error; Liberatus who wrote about 125 years after tells us in his Breviarium (cap. 4 Gallandi Bibl.

Patr. Vet. xii. 127) that John of Antioch "sent to Andrew and Theodoret, Bishops of his Council to reply in writing to the 12 chapters as renewing the dogma of

Apollinaris.'' Theodoret too in sending his replies back to John sends him aletter beginning," I was greatly grieved on reading the Anathemas which you sent me, bidding me answer them in writing and lay bare to all their heretical meaning." S. Cyril defended his Anathemas or Chapters against the exceptions made by Andrew and Theodoret separately: in the close of his Letter to his Priest

Eulogius, his Proctor at Constantinople, he says that he sends the Provost (inter

alia) copies of his answers to each of these Bishops. The second chapter begins, "If any confess not that the Word out of God the

Father has been

united to flesh Personally, ...."

No possible misunderstanding of this term,

Personal Union, united Personally,

seems to have occurred to S.Cyril, for in his Explanation of his Chapters made at the request of the Synod in order that they should he clearer (as the title tells us), during the days while the Council was awaiting its dismissal, as Alexander of Hierapolis writes to Constantinople to John of Antioch, S.Cyril does not allude to this. There is no trace of Andrew Bishop of Samosata having written against this 2nd chapter nor against the fifth and sixth: so prohably no objection occurred to him either. Nor does Eutherius bishop of Tyana in his Letter to John of Antioch, running briefly through the chapters, except against the

Personal Union.

Theodoret objects to the term,

Personal Union,

from its novelty and from its appearing to imply mixture. Again in his letter to the monks of Euphratesia, Osroene, Syria, Phoenicia and Cilicia, giving briefly his objections to some of the chapters, he repeats that the expressions

Personal Union

and

concurrence

(...)

by Natural Union,

teach some mixture and confusion of the Form of God and the form of the servant (Ep. 151 p. 1292 fin.) In answer to Theodore t's objection to the second chapter( written perhaps but a few weeks after this present treatise,) S. Cyril explains the term and says,

Seeing that Nestorius is always undoing the birth after the flesh of God the Word and insinuating merely an union of dignities and saying that man

is connected

(...)

with God, honoured with the co-name of Sonship; needs

do WE

opposing his words say that a Personal Union took place, Personal

(...)

having no other meaning than only that the nature or Person of the Word, i.e. the Word Himself, united in truth to human nature, apart from any turning and confusion (as we have full often said) is conceived of and is, One Christ, the Same God and Man.

S. Cyril uses the word habitually e.g. it occurs five times in his Treatise to the Princesses Arcadia and Marina on the right faith: he uses also other like expressions,

true union, true and Natural Union, inseverable, indissoluble.

S. Eulogius, one of S. Cyril's successors in his see (A. D. 581) and a contemporary of Pope S. Gregory, in his famous explanation that the Council of Ephesus forbad oppositions to, not definitions of, the Faith, alludes to this expression and says,

For it

[the Council of Ephesus]

does define what none before it defined. Nay its

ἡ καθ' ὑπόστασιν ἕνωσις

is a definition not made by the elder Synods.

(S. Eulogius in Phot. Bibl. cod. 230 translated in the above-cited On the clause,

And the Son

in regard &c. p. 80.)

i. e. Nestorius is citing S. Cyril himself in his letter to the monks ; see Epp. p. 3 d, and S. Cyril's reply just below,

is that blamed by you which has been said by

us ?

The Roman Editors of the Concilia, who first published this treatise in 1608, conjectured that

οὐδεὶς

no one,

might be a slip for

οὐδὲν

, nothing,

translating,

But with no thought of how base these things are.

Perhaps some words have slipped out.

See S. Ath. against Arians, iii. § 29 p. 410. O.T. note e. where this passage is translated. S.Cyril in his 16th Paschal homily, about this same time (A.D. 430) says, "Yet He was (as I said) God in the manhood too, allowing to the nature that is ours to advance through its own laws, yet along therewith preserving the genuineness of the Godhead: for thus and no otherwise will both the bairn

(

τὸ τεχθὲν

) be conceived of as by Nature God, and the Virgin which bare will be said to be mother, not of flesh and blood simply, like the mothers with us, but of the Lord and of God Who hath hidden Himself under our likeness." . . . "For as the Precious and all-holy Flesh which was forth of the holy Virgin hath become the own of the Word who is forth of God

the Father, so too all things beseeming the flesh save only sin: but chiefly and before all else will birth of a woman beseem the flesh. Hence the Godhead by Itself if it be conceived of apart from flesh will be 'without mother' and that full rightly: but when the mystery Christ-ward is brought forward, the truth as to this will be other and subtil exceedingly. For we shall deem, if we choose to think aright and go the most unerring way, that the Virgin bare not bare (

γυμνὸν

)

Godhead but rather the Word from forth of God the Father, Incarnate and United to flesh, she who was taken to aid in bearing

after the flesh

Him who was united to flesh. Emmanuel therefore is God: and mother of God will she too be called who bare

after the flesh

God who for our sakes appeared in flesh." t. v. ii. pp. 227. 228.

10.

i. e. S. Cyril's Letter to the Monks, above-cited, which Nestorius was in part contradicting in the sermon to which the extract belongs.

11.

S. Cyril uses exactly the same expression in his Letter to the Monks (Epp. 8 c) and in the first of the chapters that he appended to his great Letter to Nestorius (see note k), "If any confess not that Emmanuel is God in truth and consequently the holy Virgin Mother of God: for she hath borne after the flesh the Word from forth of God made flesh, be he anathema." But the word

carnally

after the flesh

was not understood by many: e. g. Andrew Bishop of Samosata thought that it contradicted the miraculous Birth from a virgin. S. Cyril explains his meaning in his reply to Andrew; " we said that the Virgin bare the Word of God made flesh according to the Scriptures, i. e, Man: bare Him carnally,

i.e. according to the flesh. . . . Saying

according to the flesh

is not taking away the miraculousness of the Birth .... but teaches that as God begets Divinely or in God-befitting manner according to His own Nature, so too man humanly or flesh carnally." Def. xii capp. adv. Episc. orient, cap. 1. p. 100 d e. See also below Schol. §31.& above p. 22. note o. Theodoret's objection to S. Cyril's first chapter is of a different kind and is identical with that of Nestorius (above p. 7, below p. 33 and note b): the notion that

γεγέννηκε

, she hath borne,

necessitates the conversion of the Godhead into flesh. In Andrew's case, the meaning of the word

carnally

was misunderstood, in Theodoret's, the word was apparently unnoticed.

12.

Eusebius an Advocate at Constantinople; he afterwards put out a protest addressed to the Clergy and Laity of that City (Conc. Eph. part. i. cap. 13 t. iii. 888 ed. Col.) that Nestorius was reviving the false teaching of Paul of Samosata, condemned nearly two centuries before (Marius Mercator, whose translation into Latin of S. Cyril's Defences of his 12 chapters or Anathemas against Nestorius' errors and of his Scholia on the Incarnation, has come down to us, likewise put out a paper of like kind, Opera pp. 50 sqq. ed. Baluz 1684). Many years on we read of Eusebius, as Bishop of Dorylaeum in Phrygia, as a friend of Eutyches, but after fruitless efforts to reclaim him, also his accuser before S. Flavian, Archbishop of Constantinople. In November 448, a Synod was called of Bishops who chanced from one cause or another to be there: these amounted to thirty. The circumstance of Constantinople being the capital of the Eastern Empire occasioned Bishops to be often there. (The Archbishop of Alexandria though apparently he had habitually one of nis Deacons there, as a sort of deputy, or Proctor, in the Imperial City, seems on more especial occasions to have had a Bishop there: e.g. S.Cyril sent his great Synodal Letter to Nestorius by four Bishops, Theopemptus, Daniel, Potamon and Comarius: of these Theopemptus Bishop of Cabasa and Daniel Bishop of Darnis, went to Ephesus and voted in the Council: Potamon and Comarius remained at Constantinople, for one of S. Cyril's earliest Letters after the Council (Epp. p. 81) was directed to them conjointly with the great Archimandrite Dalmatius, the Priest Eulogius, S. Cyril's Proctor, and another. A brief letter of S. Cyril's

written a few days later (pp. 91 sq.) when he was in ward at Ephesus, is directed to Theopemptus, Potamon and Daniel. Fleury (bk. 26 § 3) suggests that Theopemptus and Daniel went back to Constantinople with Letters from the Council.) Before this Synod the Bishop Eusebius accused Eutyches, who was condemned. The August of the next year, 449, the Robber-Council of Ephesus deposed S.Flavian (whose Martyrdom followed immediately for he was driven into exile to Epipa in Lydia and died there) and Eusebius. Eusebius was likewise ejected from his See and stayed at Rome as Pope S. Leo tells the Empress Pulcheria in a letter (S. Leo ad Pulch. 59 [79 col. 1037 ed. Ball.] cited by Fleury 27, 49 english translation): Eusebius was at the Council of Chalcedon, he was vindicated at the close of the 1st Session (t. iv. 1189 Col). In the third Session he presents to the Council a petition against Dioscorus (ib. 1249,1251). In the fifth Session he was one of those engaged in the

handling concerning the holy faith,

τρακται̣σάντων περὶ τῆς ἁγίας πίστεω

(ib. 1452): he signs in the sixteenth session (ib. 1737). A rescript of the Emperor Marcian annuls all that had been done against him. This Rescript addressed to Palladius, Praetorian Prefect, Valentinian, Praefect of Illyria, Tatian Praefect of the City, Vincomalus Master of the offices (see Theod. Ep. 140 tit.) and Consul-designate, is given as a sequel to the Acts of the Council of Chalcedon (part. 3 cap. xi. t. iv. 1809 ed. Col.). See Fleury Eccl. Hist. Books xxv. xxvii.and xxviii. in the English translation edited by Dr. Newman, Oxford, 1844.

Eusebius' brave and loyal conduct on this present occasion

while yet a layman,

is mentioned in the Council of

Chalcedon itself; for when that Council had heard the Letter of S. Cyril to John Archbishop of Antioch to which they gave the Ecumenical sanction of the Church, some of the Bishops called

out, ...,

Eusebius deposed Nestorius.

It is likewise mentioned by Evagrius (Eccl.

Hist. i. 9) who says, ...

, exercising the Bishop's office at Dorylaeum, who while yet an advocate first convicted the blasphemy of Nestorius.

Leontius (in the 7th century) writing against Nestorius and Eutyches (contra Nest. et

Eutych. lib. 3 in Galland. Bibl. Vet. Patrum xii. 697) speaks of it too.

13.

The people's applause during the sermons of S. Augustine and S. Chrysostom are often mentioned: Nestorius alludes to the applause of his own sermons a little above, p. 11. Two or three years later when the troubles which followed on the council through the Eastern Bishops misunderstanding S. Cyril and his language, were beginning to be allayed, and one of them, the pious and aged Paul Bishop of Emesa, was preaching at Alexandria before the Archbishop, the very words that the people uttered in their delight are preserved to us (concilia t. iii. 1617, 1621 ed. Col.). Here Eusebius' cry was one of zeal for the Faith, contradicting the denial of Truth which he heard.

14. i.e. Eusebius afterwards bishop of Dorylaeum.

15. t

See the same objection brought forward in the treatise Quod Unus Christus, given below.

16.

see Book 2, beginning of Book 5 and §§ 4.5. Def. xii capp. contr.Theod. cap. 7 init. de recta fide to the Emperor, pp. 32, 37, 38, to the Princesses, 47 b 70 e

85 c 115 c d 120 d, to the Empresses Pulcheria and Eudoxia 131 b & § 18 p. 148 b Quod Unus Christus see below. See also Theodoret in his letter to Bishop Timothy (Ep.130).

17.

Here the MS. leaves a blank of about 12 letters: these blanks sometimes indicate that the scribe could not decipher the word in the ms. which he was copying.

18.

The Creed that S. Cyril (here as elsewhere) recites above is the Nicene Creed, as actually put forth by that Council: Nestorius, being Archbishop of Constantinople, had (not unnaturally) been quoting from that of Constantinople, which is the Nicene Creed in the form in which it was afterwards put forth by the Council of Constantinople (A. D. 381), and in which it is familiar to us. See the two in Rev. Dr. Heurtley's De Fide et symbolo, pp. 5 and 17 ed. 18G9. and translated in parallel columns with the variations marked in my Father's, The Councils of the Church to the close of the second general Council of Constantinople, A. D. 381, 1857 pp. 312 sqq. For the very slow steps by which

the Creed of Constantinople became well-known beyond the more immediate neighbourhood of Constantinople itself see "On the clause,

And the Son,

in regard &c." pp. 37 sqq; for the beginnings of its Liturgical use, in Spain, pp. 49, 65; in France p. 66; Germany, Rome p. 66; the East, note 2 pp. 184, 185. Even John Archbishop of Antioch in his Letter to S. Proclus written a few years after this treatise of S. Cyril, inserts the Creed of Nicea, Synodicon cap. 196. Conc. iv. 452 Col. Diogenes bishop of Cyzicus, in the Council of Chalcedon, said, "The holy fathers who were afterwards, explained the,

was Incarnate,

which the holy fathers in Nicea said, by 'From forth the Holy Ghost and Mary the Virgin.'" The Egyptians and the most pious

Bishops with them called out,

No one admits addition

(Conc. Chalc. Act 1.1. iv. 913 ed. Col. quoted On the &c. p. 40.): probably with a keen recollection of what their great Archbishop had here said, objecting to Nestorius as adding them: for the Council was

holden in 451, only 7 years after he had departed to his rest.

On the antiquity of these words though not in the actual Nicene Creed, see my Father's note P to Tertullian in the Library of the Fathers, pp. 503, 504.

19.

Theodoret, having lived amid the same school of thought as Nestorius, shares with him the dread of the Divine Nature being imagined to be

changed into flesh.

In his objection to S. Cyril's first chapter (see above p. 24 note q) Theodoret says, "It is plain then from what has been said that the form of God was not turned into servant's form but remaining what it was, took servant's

form.....having moulded Himself a Temple in the Virgin's womb, He was co-with that which was moulded and conceived and formed and borne: wherefore we style that holy Virgin too, Mother of God, not as having borne God by Nature but man united to God Who moulded him(p. 204 c d e)." In his Letter to the Monks of the province he says, "For in his first chapter he casts out the economy that was wrought for our sakes, teaching that God the Word hath not taken human nature but was Himself changed into flesh," Ep. 151 p. 1292; Migne, t. 83. col. 1417. In his letter to the Monks of Constantinople written in his later years (Tillemont Art. xi. fin. thinks about 451) he says that

SS.Basil, Gregory, Amphilochius, Pope Damasus, Ambrose, Cyprian, Athanasius, Alexander his teacher, Meletius, Flavian, lights of the East, Ephraim the lyre of the Spirit; John [Chrysostom], Atticus, Ignatius, Polycarp, Irenaeus, Justin, Hippolytus, and (he then Bishop of Rome, the most holy Leo, all taught that "One Son is the Only-Begotten Son of God and God before the ages Begotten ineffably from out the Father, and that after the Incarnation He is called both Son of man and man, not turned hereinto but assuming what is ours." Ep. 145 p. 1253. Further on in the same Epistle Theodoret speaks also of the Manhood remaining: he says that whereas our Lord raised other bodies free from all blemish, "in His own He left the tokens of sufferings that He might through the sufferings convict of erring those who deny the assumption of His Body, and through the print of the nails might teach them who imagined that the Body had been changed into another nature, that it had remained in its proper form." ib p. 1254.

20.

This addition occurs in the same words on S. (John i. 13) p. 107 O.T. (cf. an allusion on S.John xiv. 24) and in Scholia, § 18.

21.

διαμεμήνυκεν

This emendation of the Roman editors for

διαμεμένηκεν

is confirmed to us by citations of Niketas in his catena on S. John. (This Niketas was Archbishop of Heraklea in Thrace in the xith century, he compiled ample Commentaries on Holy Scripture made up of copious extracts from the Fathers: those on the Psalms, SS. Matthew, Luke, John, the Epistle to the Hebrews, perhaps a fragment of that to the

Romans have reached us either published or in MSS.: for the psalms and S. John at least Niketas made use of the labours of those who

before him had constructed catenae of Fathers and he had besides access to works of the Fathers now lost, of which he has thus preserved something.)

22.

This passage is given rather fuller, and at greater length by Mercator, with the title,

Also in the nineteenth quire,

when he is speaking as it were against Arius.

(p. 112, Bal.)

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Early Church Fathers - Additional Texts

Cyril of Alexandria, Five Tomes Against Nestorius. LFC 47 (1881)

Book 2. pp.38-80.

TOME II.

[Translated by P.E. P

USEY

]

The Word after the Union One Incarnate Person. Similitudes of unlike things united. ' Connection ' does not unite. The Name Christ means God the Son Incarnate. Jacob's pillar a type. To His human nature belong the anointing and His subjection to the Law: yet He is God. Cyrus how

christ,

the Babylonians how

holy.

Personal Union.

Christ's

glory no imparted glory but His own inherent glory. If community of names unite, Emmanuel has nought more than we. The human cannot be allotted to a distinct person. God the Son incarnate to be worshipped just as before His Incarnation. Speak not of 'hidden' and 'manifest' as though Two, they are One. Worship of Him taught by God the Father.

The

tongue is a fire and an unruly evil,

as it is written; thrusting

from him the mischief therefrom, the Divine-uttering David says,

Set a watch,

O Lord, before my mouth, a door of fencing around my lips, incline not mine

heart to words of wickedness.

For to be able to speak aright, and to have an

exact control over the tongue, as to what it should speak, what not, is of a

truth God-given, and is no slight matter with those who practise a conversation

not void of admiration. But recklessness in speech and unbridled licence unto

trickery

are replete with danger and bear down to

the pit-fall of hell

those

who use it. And it is written,

Death and life

are

in the hand of the tongue, they that master it shall eat the fruits thereof.

A

certain other too of the wise men hath said to us,

If thou hast a word of understanding, answer, if not, lay thine hand upon thy mouth;

for

how is not silence better than unlearned speech? But accursed is it in another

way too to belch forth bitter words, and to heap down sinful sayings upon the

ineffable Glory, albeit it ought to be honoured by us with unceasing praises.

And

when

sin against the brethren and wound their weak conscience,

sin against Christ,

for

so hath written the Divine-uttering Paul.

|39

And this I say having read Nestorius' words and observing that he not only says that we ought not to say that the holy Virgin is Mother of God and that she hath borne Emmanuel Who is God, but yet in addition to this and in many ways is he minded to make war upon the glory of Christ. For he endeavours to shew us that He is God-bearing and not truly God, but man associated with God; as in equality of rank. For thus seems good to him alone apart from every one else, to think and to speak, albeit the Catholic Church, which Christ Himself presented

to Himself,

has not the

wrinkles

of him who has compiled such things, but rather as

unblemished,

she keeps wholly without rebuke her knowledge of Him, and hath made full well her tradition of the Faith. For

we believe in One God, the Father Almighty, of all things both visible and invisible the Maker, and in One Lord Jesus the Christ, and in the Holy Ghost:

and following the confessions annexed hereto of the holy Fathers, we say that the Very Word Essentially sprung from forth God the Father, was made as we and was Incarnate and made Man, that is, took to Himself a Body from forth the holy Virgin, and made it His Own: for thus will He be truly One Lord Jesus Christ, thus let us worship Him as One, not putting apart Man and God, but believing that He is One and the Same, in Godhead and in Manhood, that is, God alike and Man.

But the inventor of the most recent impiety, albeit making feint of saying

One Christ, ever divides the Natures and sets Each by itself, saying that they

did not truly come together; but

making excuses in sins,

as it is

written, devises some mode of connection, of merely (as I said) equality of

rank, as shall be shewn from his own words: and he makes the Word out of God

indwell by participation, as in a common man, and distributes the sayings in the

Gospels, so as one while to attribute certain to the Word alone

and by Himself, other while to him that is

|40

born from forth a woman separately. Yet how is it not obvious to all that the

Only-Begotten being God by Nature has been made man, not by connection simply

(as

|41

says) considered as

external or accidental, but by true union, ineffable and passing understanding.

And thus He is conceived of as One and Only, and every thing said

befits

Him and all will be said of One Person. For the Incarnate Nature

of the Word Himself is after the Union now conceived of as One, just as will

reasonably be conceived in regard to ourselves too, for man is really One,

compounded of unlike things, soul I mean and body. But it is necessary now too

to notify that we say that the Body united to God the Word is ensouled with a

reasonable Soul. And I will for profit's sake add this too: other than the Word

out of God is the flesh, in regard to its proper nature, other again Essentially

the Nature of the Word Itself. But even though the things named be conceived of

as diverse and sundered in diverseness of nature, yet is Christ conceived of as

One out of both, the Godhead and manhood having come together one to another in

true union.

And the God-inspired Scripture confirms us hereto by ten thousand words and

acts: using similitudes whereby one may (and that without labour) clearly

advance so as we may behold the Mystery of Christ. The blessed Prophet Isaiah

said therefore,

And there was sent to me one of the Seraphim and in his hand a live coal which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar and he touched my mouth and said, Lo this hath touched thy lips and shall take away thine iniquities and purge thy sins.

And

searching according to our power into the depth of the vision, we say that none

|42

other save our Lord Jesus Christ is the spiritual coal laid on the altar whereon

by us it gives forth the sweet savour of incense to God the Father: for

through Him have we had access

and

are acceptable, offering the spiritual worship. This Divine Coal therefore, when

it touches the lips of him who approaches thereto, will straightway exhibit 'him

pure and wholly imparticipate in any sin. And in what way it touches our lips,

the blessed Paul will teach saying,

Nigh thee is the word, in thy mouth and in thy heart, that if thou say with thy mouth Lord Jesus and believe in thy heart that God hath raised, Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved, for with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

And

He is compared to a Coal, because conceived of as from two unlike things, yet by

a true concurrence they are all but knit together unto union. For the fire

entering into the wood, will transelement it somehow into its own glory and

might albeit it hath retained what it was.

Our Lord Jesus Christ again likens Himself to a Pearl, saying,

The kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man seeking goodly pearls, who when he had found one Pearl of great price hath gone and sold all that he had and bought it.

I

hear Him in another way manifesting Himself to us and saying, I am

the flower of the plain, the lily of the valleys.

For

He has in His Proper Nature the God-befitting Brightness of God the Father, and

gives forth again His Savour, in respect I mean of spiritual fragrance. As

therefore in the pearl and also the lily, the thing itself is conceived of as

body, the brilliancy or fragrance therein considered in its proper definition as

other than they in whom they are, yet are the things inseparably innate again

the own properties and not alien from those which possess them:---- in this way

(I deem) shall we both reason and think of Emmanuel too. For of diverse kind by

nature are Godhead and flesh

, yet was the Body of

the Word His own, and not severed from His Body is the Word which is united

thereto; for thus and not otherwise will Emmanuel,

|43

i.e., God with us, be conceived of. Hence one while as Man, and making Himself

manifest to us from the measures of the emptiness too, He said,

No man takes

life

from Me,

another while again conceived of as God the Word and out of

Heaven and One with His proper flesh, He says,

No man hath ascended up to Heaven but He That came down from Heaven, the Son of Man.

The Holy Scripture therefore from every side knitting together unto inseverable and true union the Son and bearing us back in faith unto One Person, this extraordinary man manifoldly severs, and hath babbled idly, calling the Word out of God the Father God of Christ Himself too, as our discourse as it advances will clearly demonstrate in its own time and place. For he feigns that he is afraid lest any overcome by reverence for the holy Virgin, and calling her Mother of God, should, supposing that there is a mixture and immingling of the Persons one with another pour forth uncomeliness upon the doctrines of the Church, albeit no one thus thinks: and rectifying (as he deems) a thing so dire, he utterly confuses all things, regardless of ideas which pertain to rightness and truth: for he said thus;

"If in simple faith you had been putting forward the word

Mother of God,

I

would not have grudged it you, on examining the sense of the word. But since I

see that you, on plea of honouring the blessed Mary, are maintaining the

blasphemy of the heretics, I therefore ward off the putting forth of the word,

suspecting the danger that is concealed therein. But to speak clearly and more

intelligibly to all, it is the aim of the party of Arius and Eunomius and

Apolinarius and of all who are of like brotherhood,

bring in Theotokus, as though, a

|44

mingling having taken place and the two natures not divided, nought of the

meaner things were taken of the human nature, and they had place at length

against the Divinity,

as though all things were

spoken of One, not in

|45

regard to

the rank from connection, but to Nature. For One is Christ, and One Lord: but

in respect of Christ, I mean of the Only-Begotten Son, both Christ and Son are

said, one while, of the Godhead, another while of the Manhood and

Godhead."

§1. Seest thou how with manifold inventions of ideas he impiously

embellishes the generation after the flesh also of the Only-Begotten, how he

essays to shew that it will take place no otherwise than by some infusion or

commingling of the substances having place: albeit the Teachers of the Church do

not initiate us this fashion; for we say that a true concurrence had place, the

Word uniting to Himself the Body, yet abiding what He was. But this man taking

nought of these things to mind, hath blasphemed in no mean degree, parting Him

into two persons and hypostases wholly severed one from the other, and

attributing to either separately the words to it belonging: and again he says

One Lord Jesus Christ, as though man were connected with God by rank only, not

by true Union i. e., by Nature. How then is He One

Christ and Son and Lord, if to both severally will belong, as thou sayest, the

being thus called and so being in truth, by reason of the hypostases coming

together in no wise by union one with another, but being united in respect of

rank only or sway or authority? And yet if we examine into the nature of

|46

things, we shall observe that things which are in equality of dignity, have not

for this reason parted with their individual existence: nor yet will the having

equal degree in point of glory, suffice to union, as for example, Peter and John

were both of them Apostles and holy and adorned with equal honours and might

through the Spirit by Christ the Saviour of us all. For they along with the rest

heard, Ye

are the light of the world,

and again,

Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers

cast out devils.

Shall

we therefore say that from their equality of rank or sway accrues to them that

they too should be counted as one man, and this is sufficient for unity, I mean

unity of their persons? And how will not such an opinion be with reason

conceived of as foolish exceedingly? Why then dost thou feign that thou art

right in the Faith, saying that One is Christ Jesus the Lord, and then, severing

into two persona and hypostases the One, dishonourest the mode of the True Union

through which the Christ is One and Alone, and unlearnedly callest equality of

honour connection? What is this mode of connection? knowest thou not that dear

it always is to those in this life who are rich in honours from the rulers to be

in worldly renown? yet they being in. equal dignity sometimes, are yet separate

one from another in individual being and moreover in their desire of thinking

and doing the same things. But if the kind of rank were any necessary bond

gathering them into unity just like a physical coming together;----they would

not, being in equality of honours or rank, have been parted one from another in

persons and mind so as to be one and another. Where then shall we put thy

connection,

what

shall we count that it wrought? did it persuade them to be of one league, did it

cause that they should come together unto a mystic

union? But you

cannot say this, for reason has shewn that the connection is utterly weak to

both these.

Tell me this too (for I will ask it as well, as matter of necessity), what

good did the rank do for the man born from

|47

out a woman who was (as you said) connected with God the Word? for did it make

him equal in glory and excellency, and render him as great as He too is believed

to be? And how then will He not speak falsely saying,

My Glory will I not give to another,

and

vainly hath the Divine-uttering Psalmist too prated, saying on this wise,

Who among the

clouds shall be made equal to the Lord? who shall be made like to the Lord among the sons of God?

not he other than the Word, One and by Nature and forth of God the Father, who

in his proper person has been verily parted from union with Him? and how is this

not clear to all? Now rank has not made equal to God the Word that which was

connected, but it is seen to be and is in lower place: how then dost thou say

One Christ and Son and Lord, although one excels, at least according to the

force of reasoning, the other settles down below equality with Him and glory?

Besides (for I will add this too to what I said) the Word That is forth of God

the Father has given (according to him) His proper rank to him that is born of a

woman: but how he says that this very thing has been wrought, it is meet to

examine. Has he too been made Very Light? is he by Nature God and Life and

Creator and Wisdom and Might,

Image

and

Brightness of the Person

the Father? and the Endowments of the Supreme Glory, have they passed Naturally

into some one of things made? what then is the Excellence in God by Nature? what

great and above us, if it is possible for the creature to be rich and that

essentially

, in the good things wherein Itself is?

But perchance it has been clad in rank, as participant of the Divine

Preeminence? there are again two undoubted sons, if it is true that something

other and inferior by nature to Him Who wrought in him the participation is that

which is honoured with relationship to Him: you are therefore caught now as not

even knowing what you are saying. For why do you blame those who attribute the

words in the Gospels to One Person? is it not because you are inventing two

sons? for how is there any longer One Lord and Christ

|48

and Son, if each have his proper person and mode of being and moreover

hypostasis withdrawing unto diverse-ness, repudiating the reality of true union

and having utter irreconcilability with the other? And what is strange and shews

the loathsomeness of his blasphemies, he says that the names are common. I mean

Son and Christ and Lord. And if he say that they are common, i. e., to One

Christ and to others besides Him, his statement would have probability: but if

he ignorantly sever and supposes that these terms befit the Word by Himself and

moreover him that is forth of a woman, there are again surely and unmistakably

two christs and sons and lords. For he said, "The name Christ must one

while be put for the Godhead Itself, other while for the Manhood too, or also

for both." But the community of name will help him not a whit to conceive

of one Christ and Son and Lord while he severs (even though the hypostases

themselves part not one from another), and the Persons are disjoined in their

own proper diverseness.

For making manifest to us the force of his innate unlearning he subjoins and says,

"When therefore the Divine Scripture is about to speak of either the

birth of Christ which was forth of the blessed Virgin, or His Death, it is never

seen to put

God,

but either

Christ

Son

Lord,

seeing

that these three are significant of the two natures, one while of this, other

while of that, other while of this and that. As for example when the Scripture

declares to us the Generation out of man, what says it?

God sent forth His Son;

did not say,

God sent forth God the Word

but it takes

|49

the name which

indicates the two natures. For since the Son is Man and God, it says,

Sent forth His Son made from out a woman,

that

when you hear the word

made out of a woman,

then you may see the name put

forth which indicates the two natures, that you may call the Birth from forth

the blessed Virgin, the Son's Birth, for the Virgin mother of Christ too bare

the Son of God. But since the Son of God is two-fold in His Natures, she bare

indeed the Son of God, but bare the manhood which is son by reason of the

connected Son."

§2. But WE my friend, who know how to think better than thine empty

whistlings and who track out the order of the God-inspired Scripture which says

that

One

God the

Father out of whom

are

all things and One Lord Jesus Christ through Whom

all

things were brought into being: when we hear that Christ has been born of the

holy Virgin, then, then in all wisdom and zealous to go the straight way of the

Truth, do wo say that the Word Which sprang forth of God the Father was both

Incarnate and united Personally to flesh and born after the flesh: and we will

not endure thy trickery, but to One and Only, the Son That is by Nature, will we

allot the name Christ, with reason, when the Birth through the holy Virgin is

spoken of. For common (as I said) to Him with others also will

|50

such names confessedly "be, for many are sons by grace and

gods

and

lords

both

in heaven

and

in earth,

the Divine-uttering Paul too writes to us: yet [they are so] as participating

with Him Who is so by Nature and in imitation [of Him]. Still the name Christ

and its reality will pertain in no wise to the bare Word from forth the Father,

conceived of by us as bare [Word] by Himself and apart from flesh: but if now He

be said to have emptied Himself and to have come down [to be] in servant's form

and been made as we by reason of the flesh, He too will be called by reason of

the anointing, Christ; for not in His own Nature has the Word being God been

Anointed, but the anointing hath happened to Him in regard to His Humanity. Thus

therefore when that has first entered in, in regard to which the anointing takes

place (for His is the Incarnation whereto belongs the anointing), when Christ is

named by us we will not (according to thy unbridled speech) suppose that just a

man, severed from the Word and put apart, has been born of the holy Virgin but

the very Word (as I said) out of God the Father united to flesh and anointed

humanly

with the oil of gladness

by God the Father.

But that the anointing hath happened to God the Word in respect of the

manhood, when He became as we, holy Scripture will prove to us; for the

Divine-uttering Jacob departing from his father's hearth was hastening on his

way unto Mesopotamia and going to Laban the son of Bethuel, and having

lighted on a certain place on

the

way thither he was lodging there and, laying his head on a stone, he sleeps: and

having seen a ladder, stretching on high from earth to heaven and angels both

ascending and descending by means of it and the Lord resting thereupon, he

marvelled much at the vision and taking the stone he

set it up as a pillar and poured oil upon the top of it.

Regard now

herein our Lord Jesus Christ, the One and only and truly Son, as a pillared

stone. For indeed He is

choice stone, a head corner-stone, precious,

set

for the head of the corner

and

for the foundation of Zion

God the Father.

|51

Regard (I pray)

moreover how it was anointed, for not the whole stone throughout did the

Divine-uttering Jacob bedew with oil, but rather poured it

upon the top of it.

Therefore

not wholly (so to speak) nor in that the Only-Begotten is Word, has He been

anointed in respect of His proper Nature (for how could He be conceived of as

participate of His own Spirit?) but rather is anointed (as I said) on the

surface, i. e., externally and as in part and on the surface on the Body that

was His own by true union: and as He is said to

suffer in the flesh

humanly,

albeit by Nature Impassible as God; so is He conceived of as anointed in regard

to the human nature, albeit Himself anointing with His own Spirit those whom it

befits to partake of His holiness.

Thus are WE minded to think and are accustomed to walk aright, going on the royal and unperverted road: but

saying that such names are indicative of the two natures, allots to either with authority what seems good to him and is ashamed of the lowliness of speech belonging to the economy with flesh, and though you hear the blessed Paul say,

God sent forth His Son made from out a woman, made under the law,

Away, says this man, think not that the Word Which sprang forth of God has been sent, for He has not been made from out a woman, He has not been made under the law.

And that our words are no empty guile, but we have used rather his own speech, I will again bring forward the very things he said,

"For

God

(he says)

sent forth His Son made of a woman, if made under the law.

Here he points out the two natures, he says what took place as to the human

nature, for demand of the wrangler

Who was

made under the law?

was it God the Word?"

§3. And how will not he be verily distraught, who essays to overturn, as far

as in him lies, things so clear and known of

|52

all and undoubted? Whom hath the Father sent to us out of heaven, Saviour and

Redeemer? was it not the Word Which sprang forth of His Essence? Who is He

That descended and ascended far above the Heavens that He might fill all things?

Dost

thou say that the being able to

fill all things

is the work of our nature

and will you affix it to the measures of humanity? of whom hath the blessed John

written,

He that cometh from above is above all?

Or will haply Himself

too lie in rebuking the people of the Jews and saying, Ye

are from beneath,

I

am from above,

and

again, I

am not of this world?

For if He were man out of woman like one

of the rest, and not rather the Word That is from above and out of God the

Father, Incarnate and appearing in human form, how will He be conceived of as

both

above

and out of heaven? how

above all

and

not of this world?

albeit

a part of the world by reason of the flesh and (so to speak), according to the

measure that befits the human nature, made along with all under God. Therefore

He called the Father His God, though He too is God by Nature and beamed forth

out of His Essence Only-Begotten Son. Of whom says the blessed David,

He sent forth His Word and healed them?

for

no elder, no angel but the Lord Himself

hath

saved

us,

according to the Scriptures.

"But yea, he saith, God the Word able to fill all things has been sent. How? for where do we say that He is not? or whither will He be sent?"

Will you accuse therefore the all-wise Moses too, as having wronged in no

slight degree the Ineffable glory of God? for he said that God

descended in

the

form

of fire upon

the Mount Sinai. And if you hear the blessed David say

unto God mighty over all,

Thou shalt send forth Thy Spirit and they shall be created and Thou shalt renew the face of the earth,

wilt

thou then perchance put aside the Spirit-clad and suppose that he speaks

falsely? for no motion involving change of place does the Godhead make, nor will

It pass from place to place, as though the being in all and filling all things

were not inherent in It. These things (I

|53

suppose)........thyself too

; but you will be

reasoning again, and rising up against the true doctrines, choosing to follow

yourself alone. But you would surely have better thoughts if you reasoned thus,

that our whole speech as to God has been framed in human wise, but is understood

as befits Him Alone.

But it has troubled him not a little that the Word out of God the Father is

said to have been

made under the Law.

But the fear herein is nought, for

He hath remained what He was, Lawgiver (that is) and God. And if He have not

been made man, He hath not been made under the Law; but since it is true that He

hath humbled Himself Who in His own Nature is above and high, hath been made as

we Who is above the whole creation, and

being Rich became poor

through

being made as we, how will He not be said with us to have been

made under the Law

too?

Shall we not, if we think aright, conclude that the measure of man's nature is

defined to lie in his having to be subject to the Law? for the exempt and above

the Law and by Nature and in truth free will be none other than the Godhead.

Hence when He was made flesh then was He made under the Law too, for He paid to

the collectors the didrachm

albeit in

His own Nature Free as God and Son oven when He was made flesh. But if to thee

it seems good to sever into two the One and to declare to us that he which was

forth of a woman is man apart by himself, how will he be said to have been made

under the Law too, who is of the nature which is under the Law? for not that

which hath to be subject to the Law, will be

made under the Law,

|54

but that which, hath a Nature above Law and external to Law. For the Divine and

Most High Nature alone (as I said) is both beyond law and also free, and hath no

master whatever, but Itself rather ruleth all and subjecteth all to His own

yoke.

But this man having missed right reasoning, slid down to this extent of impiety in his ideas and arrived at such height of awkwardness, from dividing into two the One Lord Jesus Christ, as unshrinkingly to say that Emmanuel is neither truly God nor yet by Nature Son, but is so called Christ and holy, as certain other too of men like us or of those who have worshipped impure devils: for thus again hath he said:

"But as we say that the Creator of all is God and Moses god; for it

says,

I have made thee a god unto Pharaoh:

and Israel God's son, for it

says,

Israel

My firstborn son;

and as we say that Saul was

christ, for it says, I will

not stretch forth my hand upon him, because he is the Lord's christ,

and

Cyrus likewise,

Thus saith the Lord to Cyrus My christ,

and the

Babylonian holy, for

I

(it says)

marshal them

do we say that the Lord is christ and god and son and holy. But the community of

names is similar, the rank not the same."

§4. What are you saying? what word are you belching forth

out of

your

own heart

and

not

out of the mouth of the Lord,

|55

it is written? No one

calleth Jesus Anathema

save in Beelzebub. As Moses

for instance may be conceived of or called by us God, so will Christ too? after

the likeness of Israel, will He too be Son, tell me? O impiety! O words that

reck not of lifting up themselves against the glory of our Saviour! O sheer

stupidity! and that overcomes all hesitancy in respect I mean of unholy daring

against the doctrines of the Church. Let the blessed David now too sing,

The enemies of the Lord lied unto Him:

for

the Divine-uttering Moses was by nature a man as we and nought else: but when on

God saying,

Come I am sending thee to Pharaoh king of Egypt and thou shalt bring the children of Israel forth of the land of Egypt,

was putting forward as reason for begging off, his slowness of speech

and

want of utterance,

since yesterday and the third day,

he heard God say,

See I have made thee a god to Pharaoh and Aaron thy brother shall be thy interpreter.

For

feeble was the law to rid any from bondage unto the devil, but on Christ

becoming our Mediator, this too has been achieved, just as here when Aaron was

along with the Divine-uttering Moses, Israel was delivered from the bondage in

Egypt. But since Christ was about in due course of time to be made under the Law

too, in that He was as we and was man, Aaron was put in second place to Moses

And the plan of the mystery is thus,----but if one

should choose to say this too, that by the calling of God has that mighty Moses

too been honoured, according to this which has been said to us in common and as

by God's favour and munificence, I

said, Ye are gods and all of you sons of the Most High:

----is

Christ in this way God? yet how is not this madness and the empty froth of an

unlearned mind? for the one (as I said) being man by nature has been honoured

with the mere title only, the Other is truly God (for the Word was God) in human

form, having the preeminence over all of His own Nature unmutilated (for not in

change for the worse will be the Divine Nature by reason of Its

|56

descending to communicate in blood and flesh), and verily He is recognized as

God when appearing as Man also. And a clear demonstration of this are the things

that have been written in the Gospels concerning Him. For the Divine-uttering

John said,

Now when He was in Jerusalem in the feast, many believed in His Name when they saw the miracles which He was doing, but Jesus Himself did not trust Himself to them, because He knew all things and needed not that any one should testify of man, for He knew what was in man:

albeit

the being able to see the heart of man and to know its secrets, will not belong

to any one (whence should it?) of men like us, nor yet to ought other of things

made, but rather to Him Alone Who is said to

fashion

our

hearts by Himself.

Then

how has Emmanuel, being called God, been honoured like Moses with the mere title

alone, and is not rather in truth that which He is also said to be? Thus again

does John write

of Him, for He whom God sent speaketh the words of God and giveth not the Spirit by measure

Understandest thou then how, albeit beheld a man as we,

He speaketh the words of God?

For

to God Alone Who is by Nature and truly will pertain as something choice and

above the creature, the being able by a word to achieve what He will and to

render partakers of the Holy Ghost them who have been justified in faith:----and

one may see that Christ is in this case. For He said to the leper,

I will, be clean.

the widow's son,

Young man, to thee say I, Arise:

and His own Disciples

He manifested partakers of the Holy Ghost, for

He breathed on them,

saying,

Receive ye the Holy Ghost.

Then

how will He Who has advanced to this point and been crowned with God-befitting

renown be god after such sort as was Moses? whose heart knew he? who hath

believed on his name? whom hath he justified through faith in himself? where

hath he as son spoken the words of God? albeit he hath openly cried unto them of

Israel,

Thus saith

|57

the

Lord

and hath a servant's measure, for he

was made

faithful as a servant in the house

of God.

And if Emmanuel was son in the same way too as was Israel who was made so

after the flesh, thou hast brought down among bondservants Him Who is in His own

Nature Free, even though He became in the form of a bondman by reason of the

flesh and the things thereto pertaining: thou hast set in equal measure with the

sons by grace Him on account of whom they have been enriched with the grace of

sonship: for He has been called first-born of us by reason of the manhood, yet

even so hath remained Only-begotten as God.

Therefore (as saith the most wise Paul) the powers above are bidden to

worship the First-begotten

when

introduced by the Father

into the world,

and on learning the mystery

regarding Him, with ceaseless praises do they extol the One and by Nature and

truly Son. For if He gives

authority

to them that

received Him to become children of God,

John saith, and if it is true that His Spirit effects that we too should become

sons (for

God sent forth the Spirit of His Son into

our

hearts crying Abba, Father),

none

who are accustomed to think aright will endure this man saying that He too is

son in such manner as was Israel.

And how was He in such wise too christ and holy, as may be called christ both

Cyrus the King of the Persians and yet again the Persians and Medes themselves?

for it were time to say that neither has Christ been sanctified humanly albeit

the Holy Ghost soared down upon Him in form of a dove. For Cyrus son of Cambyses

led an expedition against the land of the Babylonians in his time, but he was in

error, and used to offer worship to foul devils: but when, on God stirring him

up and rousing him into wrath, he

|58

took the land of the Babylonians, by a name common, albeit not anointed with the

Holy Ghost, he was called christ. And in this way were the Persians and Medes

holy who were his fellows (for they too

served the creature more than

God

the Creator

and

worshipped the works of their own hands); but since the offering that was once,

according to the words of the Mosaic Law, separated unto God, whether calf or

sheep, was called holy; therefore have they too been called holy through the

Prophet's voice, by reason they were set apart by the Divine assent to take

captive the land of the Babylonians. If then Emmanuel is in such sort christ as

was Cyrus too, and in such wise holy as were the Medes and Persians, one might

with reason say as of their absurdity of notion that neither hath He been

anointed with the Holy Ghost nor is He holy at all. The Divine David will

therefore lie saying unto Him,

Thou lovedst

righteousness and hatedst wrong, therefore God, Thy God, anointed Thee with the oil of gladness above Thy fellows.

And he chattering after this sort against the Preeminence and glory of our Saviour, thinks that he thrusts away the charge of impiety, by saying something childish and without understanding, "for the community (he says) of names is like, not the rank the same." How, tell me, for I do not understand? For if He is in such wise God as was Moses too, and in such wise son as was Israel, and in such wise christ as was Cyrus and moreover in such wise holy as were the Medes, how will He escape having to be in equality of rank with them?

Now therefore you will be caught in having blasphemed against the very Nature

of the Word too, for thou saidst again,

"Say of Him Who assumed that He is God, add of that which is assumed that it is the servant's form, bring in next the dignity of connection, that of the two the sway is common, that of the two the dignity is the same; while the natures remain, acknowledge the union of rank."

§5. He divides therefore again into two, in exceeding lack of understanding

he lavishes on rank the force of union,

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haply not understanding what union is, and what the rank really is. But this we

say; he said that of the two natures one is the sway, one the Dignity. Since

then he who is in equality of glory with God the Word will not surpass Moses in

respect of being god, it is I suppose clear that the very Word which is forth of

God, will have equal status in nature and glory with Moses, for if the mean be

like and in every respect have exact resemblance with the first and third, the

plan of their nature will not be diverse.

But haply he will say that the mode of rank is not nature: how therefore do you deem it fit to gather into one (as yourself say) sway and to crown with equal rank things essentially so far severed from participation one with another and also from equality? for where a nature is wholly in inferior place, the other overtopping it, how will there accrue to it both equality of honours and even dignity and the mode of glory be not diverse?

But that on mentioning connection, haply conceived of as that of mere

proximity and juxtaposition, or as an accidental one, himself rises up against

his own words, building what he undid and setting up what has been overthrown,

will be clear by this again also: for he said thus;

"Therefore

I would have you hold fast

with all assurance: there is no severance of the connection of the dignity of

the sonship, there is no severance of his being Christ, of the Godhead and

Manhood there is a severance; Christ is indivisible, in that He is Christ, for

we have not two christs nor two sons, for there is not with us a first and a

second, nor yet other and other, nor again another son and another again; but

the One is Himself twofold, not in rank but in nature."

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§6. Tell me again what it is you term inseverable connection: is it the

union, I mean in respect of Person, which WE set forth, striving together for

the doctrines of the Truth? or is it this which is conceived of as one of

juxtaposition and proximity of any to anything? for thus does the God-inspired

Scripture take the word. And verily He spake to the most holy Moses, when He was

discoursing with him respecting that olden tabernacle,

And thou shalt make fifty taches of gold and connect the curtains one to other with the

taches.

For being five and each having individually the being other than the

rest, they were connected by the taches. But not thus do WE say that the union

has been wrought as to Christ, for neither as one may be connected with another,

either in respect to like mindedness or bodily nearness, was He too like this,

but (as I have repeatedly said) He made His own the Body which was taken from

forth the holy Virgin; and we say that the Word out of God has been truly united

to flesh not without a soul.

Hence if the force of the connection which has been spoken of by him, signify

the union which we mean, i. e. of Person, reasonably will he have said that

there is no severance of Christ, in that He is Christ; for He is "not one

and another, nor yet son and son, other and other, first and second," but

One both before flesh and with flesh:

for thus will He be in respect

of rank (as THOU sayest) and also of sway, inseverable, yea rather the Same.

Then how dost thou say that the One and Inseverable is twofold, and that not in

regard of rank but of nature? for not because the Word out of God the Father

having taken flesh, proceeded forth man as we, will He for this reason be called

also twofold, for One and that not without flesh is He Who is in His proper

Nature external to flesh and body.

For as, were one to kill a man such as we are, he would not with reason be

accused of having wronged two men but one

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alone, even though the man be conceived of as being of soul and body, and the

nature of the things that have been brought together be not the same, but

diverse: so again must we conceive of Christ, for He is not twofold, but One and

Only Lord and Son is the Word from forth God the Father, not without flesh. For

that of Manhood and Godhead most vast is the difference or interval I myself too

would allow, for other in respect of the mode of their being and nothing like

one to another are plainly the things which have been named. But when the

mystery Christ-ward is brought before us, the plan

of the union ignores

not indeed the difference, but puts aside the severance, not confounding the

natures or immingling them but, because the Word of God when He partook of flesh

and blood, even thus is conceived of and called One Son. But you in saying that

they ought not to be called two christs, nor should one confess two sons, and

hereby filching the semblance of rightness in dogma, are caught in the act of

saying two christs, and dividing into his own diverseness man and God, and you

endeavour to shew that the one is operated, the other operates: for your words

are thus,

"The

good glory of the Only-Begotten

one while is ascribed to the Father, for

it is,

He says,

My Father which glorifieth Me,

other

while to the Spirit, for

the Spirit of Truth,

He says,

shall glorify Me,

other

while to the power of Christ, for

they,

it says,

went forth and preached the word everywhere, the Lord co-working and confirming the word through the signs that followed.

§7. If he says that the Only-Begotten Word of God, as

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though lacking glory in that He is and is conceived of as Word and not yet

Incarnate, is glorified by the Father and the Holy Ghost:----that he both

blunders and has missed the truth, I will leave saying for the present (for

occasion leads us to something else); but he seems to me to have forgotten what

he had just now thought out and said, for he said, "Not one and another is

Christ, not other and other son, for we have not two Christs and two sons."

But, O most understanding, would I say, if thou affirm that the good glory of

the Only-Begotten is ascribed to the power of Christ, how will He be not one and

another, or how not wholly and surely two? for if not the same be giver and

receiver, or he ascribe to another than himself the things which accrue to him

by nature, Christ hath wrought being possessed, as being other than the

Only-Begotten: for if the good glory of the Only-Begotten have been (as you say)

ascribed to him; and the Divine-uttering disciples using the power that came

from him, preached and wrought miracles, how is that not true that I said? for

he hath wrought using other's power, that he which wrought and not himself

rather may be glorified by those in the world. What then (tell me) appears there

more in Him than in the holy Apostles? for they have wrought wonders not by

their own power, and this themselves clearly confessed, for they were worthy of

admiration in knowing this too and glorifying Him Who worketh in them. Then how

ought not Christ Who according to thee was possessed by another and had from

without the good glory of the Only-Begotten, to have proclaimed to those who

approach Him as God, and supplicate succour from Him, In the name of the

Only-Begotten, or in His Might, be to thee this good thing: for so used to do

the all-wise disciples, every where naming Jesus of Nazareth. But to no one

whatever hath He declared this, but rather to His own power used He to attribute

what was accomplished, one time saying to the blind man,

Believe ye that I am able to do this?

and

requiring

their assent, at another ordering with authority saying,

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I will, be clean.

Why dost thou not, letting go the fables fit for old

women which have been invented by thyself alone, occupy thyself with wise mind

about the depth of the mystery?

But one may see that he little recks of things needful unto profit, but is

afraid lest he let drop ought true and be caught thinking anything praiseworthy:

and thinks every thing that is most discordant and makes a condemnation utterly

inconsiderate of the doctrines of the church, albeit he should have remembered

God saying by the mouth of Ezekiel to those who are over the spiritual flocks,

ate the good pasture and drank the pure water and troubled the residue with your

feet, and My flock fed on the treadings down of your feet and drank the water

troubled by your feet.

For when WE apply our minds to the God-inspired

Scriptures, we eat

the good pasture,

as it is written, and we drink the

untroubled water, i. e. the unmixed with falsehood, translucent and most pure

word of the Spirit: but if we thicken it and immingle therewith like mud the

cheerlessness of our own devices, we plot against the flocks of the Saviour.

And that this too is true, the things which he has thought out and heedlessly said of Christ, will shew; for it is thus:

"For God the Word even before the Incarnation was Son and God and of one

mind with the Father, but in the last times He took the form of a servant. Yet

being before this Son, and being [so] called, after the assumption He cannot be

called Son separately, lest we teach the doctrine of two sons. But since he has

been connected with Him which is in the beginning Son, Him who was connected

with him, he may not admit of severance in respect of the dignity of sonship, in

respect I say of the

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dignity of

sonship, not in respect of the natures. Wherefore God the Word is called Christ

also, since He has His connection with Christ perpetual. And it is not possible

that God the Word should do ought without the manhood, for it has been with all

exactitude brought unto exact connection, not unto deification, as the wise ones

of the neo-dogmatists say."

§8. He that durst say that the good glory of the Only-Begotten has been

ascribed to the power of Christ, and that plucked asunder the bond of Oneness,

gathers again into union and again dissolves it and parts the natures one from

other. And most plentifully does he vainly talk and rhodomontade to us

respecting these things, so that even though he should say ought that tendeth

unto orthodoxy, he may be clearly convicted of not knowing what he saith. For he

says here that the Word of God "is both Son and God even before the

Incarnation, moreover that in the last times He took the form of a

servant." Tell me therefore, if I do not seem to thee to say what is meet,

Who is it now that is said to be made man? and what dost thou say that being

made man is? who is he that took the servant's form? and how was it taken by

him? That in saying therefore that a man was made man, you will display as

worthy of ridicule your own understanding, how can one doubt? for he that is man

by nature,

how

will he be made what he was, and pass as though to somewhat else, in respect I

mean of nature? that which in its own nature is not free, how will it be said to

have become bond, as though it were not so at the beginning? Hence to have been

made man, will not pertain unto a man, far from it, and to take the form of a

servant, belongs not to him who even at the beginning has the measure of

bondservice, but to Him rather Who being not man by Nature, is believed to have

been made so, and Who being Lord of all as God, abased Himself in our condition,

uniting to Himself Personally the human nature, and taking the form of the

servant. For thus will that too be true which thou

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saidst, that "after the assumption, He cannot be called Son separately lest

we teach the doctrine of two sons."

And the right and unperverted and straight-going path of doctrines, is this and no other. But he again who mentioned to us the being-made-man of the Word Which is forth of the Father, borne almost straightway unto forgetfulness of what he said, severs again into two the One, both in vile sort floating in feeblest ideas and using ever words untested, for he said, "But since he has been connected with Him, Who is in the beginning Son, Who was connected with him, he may not admit of severance, as regards the dignity of sonship, as regards dignity I say of sonship, not as regards the natures." Rightly, my friend, dost thou reject as unprofitable that which seems to be insecure, studiously has it been set before thee to use ever vigilant mode of speech. For lo, lo, severing the natures, thou gatherest them into union as regards the dignity of sonship. Sufficeth therefore unto true union in things by nature severed one from another, the sameness or identity of names and the dignity in respect of this? for thus too does it seem good to thee to say. Therefore since the name Christ, and moreover son and lord, have been given to others too as names common [to several] (for very many have been made christs and have been called sonsand lords); they too will be as regards the dignity of sonship, both disseverable one from another and all of them one in respect of the union which you think was wrought in respect of Christ too. But a man such as we will be wholly distinct from the Word out of God: how therefore they have not been severed, how too there is one son, I cannot conceive, unless we say that the human nature and the Word have come together by a true union.

But since one must, on account of these words of his, carry round the

argument even unto absurdity, that on all

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sides he may be convicted of having thought not aright, come now, come, let us

say this too. For if the dignity of sonship suffices unto union, since the Word

Which is from forth Him is called and is Son of God the Father, and the name is

common to many more, where is the harm (tell me) of saying that the rest too all

of them have themselves been united with Him, in order that Emmanuel may have

nought more than they? for the claim

of the same names will (it

seems) be contending with Him and be striving for equality, and the mode of

connection will lie in bare and mere appellation or community of name. What then

is being made man understood to be? what too the descent in the servant's form?

for if the mode of the being made man is (according to him) a mere connection,

and consist in the dignity only of sonship what is to hinder our saying that it

has been effected in regard to all the rest too? But the friend of learning sees

assuredly the uncomeliness of what is said. Whither therefore is he now borne

off, distraught, unto things not lawful? by us shall be said to him what is

uttered by Jeremiah's voice,

Thou waxedst weary in much journeying,

for

he is

tossed to and fro borne about with every wind,

as saith the most

wise Paul. Therefore receive the

anchor of the soul sure and stedfast,

set

thy

feet upon a rock.

If thou sayest that the Word of God was made man,

this will suffice to shew that He Who is above all the creation was made as we.

He took the servant's form although He possessed freedom as God; for He was in

equality with the Father, Who possesseth dominion over all. Cease to sever the

natures after the union: for that one thing and another is the Divine Nature and

the nature of man it will be fit to know, and needful I deem to those who are

sound in mind (for they are parted one from another by incomparable

differences), but in regard to Christ the Saviour of us all, do thou having

brought them togetherinto union true andof Person, reject severance, for thus

wilt thou confess one Christ and Son and Lord.

But I know not how the inventor of feeble doctrines has made exceeding petty

account of the fact of union, and thrusting away both it (as seems) and the

might of

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the truth, hath gone again

unto what liketh himself and saith, "Therefore is God the Word called

Christ also, seeing that He hath His connection with Christ perpetual. And it is

not possible for God the Word to work ought without the manhood; for it hath

been accurately adjusted unto exact connection, not deification, as the wise

ones of the neo-dogmatists say." When therefore he says that the Word from

forth God the Father has been separately called Christ, as having connection

with Christ, i. e., with another, how has he not idly prated in saying that

after the assumption He cannot be so styled separately? since not as One is that

conceived of by us which is said to have been accidentally connected with ought

else, for two of a surety will be rightly conceived to be the things which come

together, and not one, itself connected with itself. False speech therefore are

his words, and in another sense are they idle talk: but WE after the union,

though one name God the Word, conceive not of Him apart from His own flesh;

though one say Christ, we recognize the Word Incarnate.

What then is the mode of the connection which you

speak of conceived to be? for if you say that the human nature has been united

Personally with the Word That sprang forth from God, why (tell me) do you insult

the Divine Flesh? albeit you refuse not to worship it, while the duty of being

worshipped belongs only to the Divine and Ineffable Nature: but if you do not

think that a true union took place, but call rather by the name of connection,

the rank which consists in identity of name and in mere and only equality of

style, why do you prate in solemn language

saying that he that is born

of the woman has "been accurately adjusted unto exact connection," i.

e., with the Word? for they are synonymous

one with another, son with

son, and lord with lord, nor are

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the

names a whit inferior one to another, and to inquire into any superiority in

them is (I suppose) idle, for son than son

qua

son, hath neither greater

nor less. You are therefore talking superfluously (clearly so) in saying that he

has been "accurately adjusted unto exact connection."

But to

say that they have been accurately adjusted one to another will belong (as

appears to me) not to things possessing an identity of name, but to those

rather, which obtain the equality and likeness in every thing of things that are

believed to be one. As for example we say that there hath been accurately

adjusted unto exact correspondence to the form of such an one, either the son

that is begotten from out him, or one might say his image: but as regards

connection, how can things be conceived of and said to have been accurately

adjusted?

But himself interpreted to us the force of connection: for "it is not possible (he says) that God the Word should do ought without the human nature." Likeminded therefore with one another and harmonious according to thee, and from common counsel advancing unto each action shall we believe the pair of sons spoken of by thee. How then are there not two christs and sons and lords? But you affirm (it is like) that the Word used His Body as an instrument. Yet if you say One Son and One Person, the Incarnate Person of the Word, He will not be an instrument of Deity, but rather will use as an instrument His own Body, just as a man's soul too does. Therefore confess One, not dividing the natures, at the same time knowing and holding, that of the flesh the count is one; of the Godhead again, that which beseems It alone: for we say that the flesh of the Word by no means became Godhead, but rather Divine, as being His own. For if the flesh of a man is called human, what hinders that that of God the Word should be called Divine? why then dost them mock at the beauty of the Truth, telling us of the deification of the holy flesh, and all but casting in the teeth of those who have chosen to think aright, a god-making, albeit thyself sayest,

"In order therefore that it might be pointed out to the

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Magi too, Who this is That is worshipped by them, and to Whom the grace of the

Holy Ghost led them----that it was not to a mere babe viewed by itself, but to a

body connected ineffably with God."

§9. Since therefore he says that the body has been ineffably united to God, and that which is truly ineffable is beyond understanding and speech, true of a surety is the union or the (according to him) connection. For such things are ineffable, and of things that thus come together with one another one would not (I deem) know the mode. But if thou art able to say it, and deemest that thou canst declare the force of the connection, how is it any longer ineffable?

But I marvel that albeit he says that the Body has been connected with God and that ineffably, he does not say that it is His very own, in order that it might be conceived of as one with Him, but parts again into man and God, separately and apart, the One Christ and Lord Jesus, and feigns that he thinks aright, when he says,

"Yet

not mere man is Christ (o accuser)

but Man alike and God: had He been God alone, it had been right, of Apolinarius,

to say, Why seek ye to kill Me, God, Who have told you the truth? This is He Who

was encircled with the Thorny Crown, this He Who said,

God, My God, why forsookest Thou Me?

this He Who endured the three days

death, this do I worship with the Godhead as co-partner in the Divine

sway."

§10. View now I pray again how he snatches at and puts around his own words

the form of the truth (for "not mere man, says he, is Christ, but Man alike

and God,") yet severs again and says that He is not One, and stupidly takes

hold of something without foundation and constructs what pleases himself. For as

though some one were saying that the Word had appeared to us upon earth bare and

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without flesh, and had conversed

with us, and wrought His Divine signs, or that He was common man and that not

the Word Himself has been made Man:----he says, "Not mere man is Christ,

but God also." But WE, most excellent sir (will I say), even though we say

that He is Man alike and God, do not speak thus as putting them apart, but

rather knowing that the Same even before the Incarnation was Son and God and

Word of the Father, and after it hath become man as we and been made flesh. But

he asserting that He ought not to be conceived of as mere man but God and Man,

allots the Thorny Crown and the rest of the Sufferings to man severally and

apart, while he confesses that he worships this man with the Godhead, and yet

greater impiety, as not being (it is like) truly God and Son, but co-partner in

the sway of the Word. For that he clearly severs, his confession that he ought

to be worshipped

along with

the Godhead will clearly shew. For that which

is co-worshipped with other is altogether other than that with which it is

co-worshipped. But WE are accustomed to worship Emmanuel with one worship, not

severing from the Word the Body That was Personally united to Him.

But it is meet to investigate what the being "advocate of the Divine

Sway" means. For did our Lord Jesus Christ Himself too like one of the holy

Apostles and Evangelists preach to the world another christ or son and lord, as

having the Divine Sway or Authority over all, and Himself too speak for the

glory of another? albeit the choir of God's heralds proclaim to the world Jesus

Christ who is forth of the seed of David according to the flesh, and the plan

our faith advances through our confession to

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Himward, and we are justified, believing not on a mere man like us, but on Him

Who is by Nature and truly God. And the Gentiles indeed were living in the world

without God,

when

they knew not Christ, as blessed Paul saith, but since they knew Him they have

not remained in ignorance of Him Who is by Nature God. Let him therefore teach

us Whose glory and sway it was that Christ spoke for, albeit of them that came

to Him He demanded faith in Himself, and this faith in Him He attributed to the

Father: and verily He said,

Believe in Me and in God believe

, and again,

He that believeth on Me believeth not on Me but on Him That sent Me, and he that seeth Me seeth Him That sent Me.

But haply

to speak for

according to him may mean the same as

to speak as

I concede, albeit the word has other meaning. Then how may man speak as God

(according to thee) when enduring the contumelies of the Jews? For come let us

view the speech befitting each. It will be meet for Him Who is in truth God by

Nature to say, I am invisible, impalpable and superior to suffering, moreover

Incorporeal, Life and Life-giving and above all as God: the other expounding to

us his own nature how it is, will reasonably say, I am visible and palpable,

passible, subject to decay and subject to God. Will then he who says such things

speak as He That excels and is superior, as regards the count of His own Nature?

how were this not an unlearned thing to say? for one surely will speak falsely,

either that one or this. But in saying advocacy or speaking for, that it is

nought else than to speak for another, you confess even against your will who

tell us of connection and of One Christ and Lord: and severing them into two you

worship them, yea rather you co-worship, and think that you are freeing the

Church from the charge of god-making, yourself engoddening a man, and not saying

One Son even though He be not conceived of apart from His own flesh: for then

would you worship Him

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unblamed, and

will know where you were, as it is written

going astray from the

doctrines of the truth.

"But yea (saith he) he hath said to the leper,

I will, be thou cleansed,

and to the ruler of the synagogue's daughter,

Maid, arise,

and to the sea,

Peace, be still,

and herein was he a co-partner, for he uttered the Divine words whereby it was possible to achieve all things easily." Two then are they that command, and let us grant that the words on all matters belong to both. When then it says, Why

seek ye to kill me, a man which have told you the truth,

whose words (tell me) do you say that these be? or dost thou allot those to the Word, these to a man born of a woman as other than He? Where then wilt thou put the most holy Paul who says clearly,

But to us One God the Father out of Whom all things and we unto Him, and One Lord Jesus Christ through Whom all things and we through Him.

But he, over and over saying, "One Son and not one and other, nor yet Christ and a second christ," contends against his own words, and to two persons and distinct hypostases allots the expressions of the Divines and His own.

Yet not regardless of his own notions, he puts forth again,

"I

venerate him as image of

Almighty Godhead; for He

highly exalted Him and gave Him a Name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus Christ every knee should bow, of heavenly and earthly and beneath the earth and every tongue should confess Lord Jesus Christ.

§11. And who again will be conceived of as he whom (as he supposes) he

confesses he venerates and pretends to honour with likeness to God, save surely

him whom he but now mentioned to us, calling him an advocate or co-worker of the

Divine sway? whom he foolishly said ought to be co-worshipped with the Godhead,

as son other and severally than

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the

Word of God: he says that he has also been exalted by God the Father, that he

moreover received

the Name which

is above every name,

that to him

should

both

every knee how, of heavenly and earthly and neath the earth and every tongue confess Lord Jesus Christ.

If therefore the Father hath placed Him, being God by Nature, on high even

before the here-mentioned exaltation: on investigating the mode of the

intervening abasement, we shall find some wise Economy in regard to which

dishonoured meanwhile, He had become again in the exaltation wherein He ever

was, exaltation essentially inexisting and verily Proper to Him. If this be not

so (as he deems and says) but He made some other than the Word of God, the man

connected with Him, an object of worship by heaven and earth and those lower

yet:----He hath engodded a man like us: no longer will He meetly blame us as

though we desired to engod him that is not God, whereas one must fasten on God

the Father Himself the charge of the transgression hereto pertaining. He that is

studious for learning sees therefore in what direction his words burst forth,

and the inventions of his untempered miscounsel at what a word they terminate.

For WE say that the Son being by Nature God, i. e., the Word out of God the

Father, descended unto voluntary emptying, ascended again with the flesh too

unto the God-befitting Dignity of His inherent Excellence: for He is worshipped

with flesh too, as being an object of worship even before it, for He was even

yet by Nature God, both before the emptying and when He is said to endure the

emptiness, made as we. But this man disdaining so august and spotless doctrines

connecteth a man with God by mere outward accident, and is not ashamed to

co-worship him as in equality of dignity and as one with another, and maintains

(he says) that he received as somewhat unwonted and strange and as a matter of

favour that to him

every knee should bow,

and besides that

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every tongue should confess Lord Jesus Christ.

And shouldst thou say that

he was made God by Nature, he hath blasphemed openly saying that the Nature of

the Godhead is generate; and if not by Nature but he receive the dignity of gift

and from outside and by mere title, how is he not openly saying that we worship

him who is not by Nature God? And together with us (it is like) the gravity of

the spirits above too is in error. And the Father Himself is the beginning and

plea to us of these things. How then will He yet find fault with them who have

chosen to worship the creature rather than Himself? and why does He indict and

punish those that have erred, if the error have been by the will of Himself, in

exhibiting to us as an object of worship him who is not by Nature God?

But since citing here this word, I mean the one before us, that to Him

shall bow every knee and every tongue shall confess Lord Jesus Christ,

he (I know not how minded)

pretermitted what remains and was of necessity added in order by the blessed Paul, come let us adding it say this,

for

every tongue confesses Lord Jesus Christ to the glory of God the Father.

Hence if He be not by Nature God, but he says that on account of accidental connection, I mean with the Word out of God, he is worshipped both by ourselves and by the holy angels:----some mode of honour

has been invented by the Father, so that the creature should be engodded along with Himself, and to no purpose has He displeasure against any for having done this: and if this thing were to His honour, how should He not deem worthy of recompense, praise and glory them who have chosen to do this?

But haply they will say this, How is it any honour to the Father that

every knee should bow

to Emmanuel?

Because the Word being by Nature God and out of Him, that is, out of His

Essence, has been made flesh, and is worshipped (as I said) as One and Alone and

Truly Son with His proper Flesh. And the Father is glorified as God,

|75

having Very Son Him who was begotten from forth His Essence, whom made flesh

also He hath given for us, in order that He having suffered in the flesh might

save all under Heaven, that

every one who believeth on Him should not perish but have everlasting life,

that

every one

that seeth

Him might

see the Father.

Now that this too

is to us verily a life-giving thing, the Son Himself hath shewn: for He said,

This is Life Eternal that they might know Thee, the Only Very God and Jesus Christ whom Thou sentest.

And this and none other is the way to the right and most unerring line of thought, but he utterly confounding every thing says,

"Because of the wearer I reverence the worn, because of the hidden I

worship him that is seen.

§12. View again (I pray) how he every where shuns the union and fears the

truth and refuses the rightness of the Divine doctrines. Not other than the worn

was He who weareth, but rather the same conceived of in concurrence

Godhead and manhood, and One and Alone in truth Son of God the Father. Worship

therefore the Word out of God as One with His own Flesh. For tell me, if I do

not seem to thee to think aright, thrusting aside as feeble thy slow speech

herein. For suppose one should choose to say of any man such as we are or of any

one of the kings of the earth, Because of the king's soul I reverence his body,

because of the hidden I worship him that is seen, would not one straightway

chide him and say, O sir what are you doing? one man surely is the Ruler, even

though he be evidently compounded of two, soul I mean and body. Why then are you

idly blabbing to us, speaking of a wearer and a worn, a hidden and an apparent,

and confessing that you co-worship as one with another and dishonouring the

|76

mode of union, whereas the God-inspired Scripturs reveals to us One Christ and

Lord, the Word out of God the Father with His own Body? Knowest thou not that He

healed in Jerusalem the blind from his birth, afterward finding him in the

temple, He engrafted into him a firm and stablished faith in Himself? for He

came to him and asked,

Dost

THOU

believe on the Son of God?

and

when to this he cried out,

Who is He, Lord, that I might believe on Him?

again said,

Thou hast both seen Him and it is He that talketh with thee

Thou seest how He hath shewn

him not the wearer, not the hidden within, but rather Himself as One with the

flesh? And verily the wise John says,

That Which was

from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we viewed and our hands handled, of

the Word of Life.

Albeit the Godhead is impalpable, yet the Word has been

made palpable through His own flesh; invisible by Nature, He was yet manifest

through the Body; but Thou again completely severest and dealest subtilly with

the truth, parting the natures, uniting (as you say) the worship. But if you

part the natures, along with them will diverge the natural properties too of

either, the count of their difference will speed apart: hence two are they

confessedly.

But tell me who ask, what is it that severs the natures one from another and

what will be the mode of their difference. You will (I suppose) surely answer

that one thing by nature is man or the manhood, another God or the Godhead: and

the one exalted incomparably above the other, and it as much inferior as is man

less than God. How then (tell me) dost thou deem right to honour with one

worship things of so unlike nature and parted, as regards their mode of being,

by incomparable differences? For would you, if you put about a horse a man's

glory, be doing anything praiseworthy? would you not rather be insulting the

superior, dragging down the better nature into dishonour?

|77

But he has invented something clever in his defence, for he subjoins:

"Not

by itself God is that

which was formed in the womb, not by itself God that which was formed forth of

the Spirit, not by itself God that which was buried in the tomb; for so should

we have been man-worshippers and very worshippers of the dead. But since God is

in that which is assumed, from that which assumeth is the assumed co-named God,

as connected with the assumer."

§13. Lo again is he who every where telleth us of connection, and feareth

the charge of man-worship, caught in the act of being a man-worshipper, and is

holden in the meshes of his own mis-counsel and is detected falling into a

reprobate mind. 'For (says he) that which is born from the womb is not by itself

God.' How I marvel at thy shrewdness and thy so subtle mind: for who ever is

there who hath dared to say this? or who that knows not that

that which is born of the flesh is flesh?

yet

was it the own flesh of the Word and He is conceived of as one with it, just as

we said but now that the soul of man too is one with his own body. If therefore

one should choose say of us too, The body by itself is not man, would not such

an one reasonably be called superfluous in his words and a random talker? for

none will deny that the body by itself is not man, but it will be rather called

the body of a man: natheless one will not severing them asunder and putting soul

and body apart say that the body is co-named with the soul in order to signify a

single man, for such a speech would not have been made orderly but would rather

be replete with unlearning; but on bringing both together by physical

union

unto the condition of one man, he

will

|78

then style him a man, and will

not in this way seem to say what is paltry and uncomely. One must therefore if

one would be in all wise and sensible say, A body which is from forth a woman,

and confess that conjoined by personal union to the Word, it has rendered the

Same, God and Man, One Christ and Son and Lord. But now pretermitting this,

falling quite away from the straight road he thinks......

the

perverted way, and proclaims unto us two gods: one, as if by Nature and in

truth, the Word forth of God the Father, and other than He, him who is co-named

with Him. For just as no one of us would be said to live (for example) with

himself alone, but rather he would live with another, and if any one were to say

that any of the kings of the earth co-reigned with himself, such an one would

reasonably incur ridicule, and would be blabbing

, putting and

saying what belonged to one only, as though [he were speaking] of two: just so

is it exceeding lack of understanding to suppose that

to be co-named

can

have place in respect of one only. For they will surely be two; and the one is

God by Nature, the other having (it seems) the mere being co-named [as

something] from without and accruing to him, is exhibited to us as a new god.

Does therefore He That is by Nature and truly God of all lie in saying to us,

If thou wilt hearken unto Me, there shall be no new

god be in thee, neither shalt thou worship an alien god?

Then

how have we worshipped Christ and how to Him

shall every

|79

knee bow?

how dost thou confess that thou veneratest Him? albeit thou

fearest (as thou saidst) to be called a

man-worshipper.

But he has as he thinks some clever answer to this, "he is co-named god as connected with the assumer:" how was he assumed (tell) or what the mode of the connection? If therefore by true union, I mean of Person, cease dividing what has been united; for seasonably (I deem) by us too shall be said to thee who art severing the inseverable,

What,

therefore God joined together let not man put asunder.

But if thou say that the assumption or the connection is extraneous and of accident, how knowest thou not that in

us too is God and WE are connected to Him relatively and have been made

partakers of His Divine Nature?

yea the Divine-uttering David singeth,

My soul is fast joined

after Thee.

Shall WE too therefore be co-named with God by Nature gods according to him, to us too shall every knee bow? What God the Father hath enjoined to the spirits above let the Divine-uttering Paul come forward and

teach;

For when

(saith he)

He bringeth the First-begotten into the world He saith, And let all the Angels of God worship

Him.

Since therefore herein thy wise word has not been added, but He has enjoined rather that He should be worshipped as of a surety One and not one along with another: who is He who is worshipped by the Angels, albeit the Divine Scripture calls Him First-born? We say that the Word out of God the Father has been called First-born albeit He is God by Nature and Only-Begotten Son and not reckoned with the creature, as far as regards Godhead, because He was made Man and

First-born among many

brethren

One therefore is He Who is worshipped by the spirits above, the Word forth of

God the Father with His own flesh: for then did He bear Him and, as having

the preeminence in all things,

He conceived of as First-born. And

|80

the God-inspired Scriptures wholly proclaim One Christ and Son and Lord: but

this too-curious man says Two and he is not ashamed to add a worshipped man to

the Holy and Consubstantial Trinity: for he says again,

"But this kinsman after the flesh of Israel, man according to what is

manifest, begotten according to Paul's voice of the seed of David, is by

connection Almighty God" and then adds,

"Hear Paul proclaiming both, he confesses the man first and then deifies

what is manifest by connection with God, that none may suspect the Christian of

being a man-worshipper. Keep we therefore unconfused the connection of the

natures, confess we One God, reverence we the man who is co-worshipped by a

Divine connection along with the Almighty God."

§14. If therefore on naming Man thou knowest that He is with this God by

Nature, it is well and I will stop: but if severing the natures, not merely in

respect of knowing which is the human, which again the Divine, but rather

parting them from their concurrence unto unity, confessedly thou art a

man-worshipper, and it shall be said to thee by us,

Thou shalt eat the fruit of thy labours

and being hard and spurning admonition, go alone on the perverted way. But WE,

tracking the pious and blameless path of the holy fathers, instructed full well

in the writings of the Apostles and Evangelists, will honour together with God

the Father and the Holy Ghost, with one worship, the One Lord Jesus Christ,

through Whom and with Whom to God the Father be glory with the Holy Ghost unto

ages of ages.

[A small selection of footnotes and marginalia, omitting

all biblical references, follows]

See S. Cyril's fourth chapter, "

If any one allot to two Persons or Hypostases the words in the Gospel and

Apostolic writings, said either of Christ by the saints or by Him of Himself,

and ascribe some to a man conceived of by himself apart from the Word That is of

God, others as God-befitting to the Word alone That is of God the Father, be he

anathema." Neither Andrew nor Theodoret understood this chapter; Andrew

allows that the words must not be allotted to two persons, and uses the term

ἄκρα

of the Union of God

and Man both here and on chapter 11 end, just as S. Cyril Hom. Pasch. 7, p. 102

d had said

τὸ εἰς

ἄκρον ἑνοῦν

and in the Hom. 16 (A.D. 429) so often quoted by Andrew, p. 230 b (as well

as at p. 17 above and elsewhere) had used the expression

τὴν εἰς

ἄκρον ἕνωσιν

[Nestorius § 8, below p. 64 had called it

ἄκρα

συνάφεια

]; but appears to think

that S. Cyril had denied any distinction of the words at all. Theodoret after an

allotment to the Human nature of our Lord of words said by Him of His Human

nature, shews his misunderstanding of S. Cyril's chapter by adding what is quite

true, but is equally admitted by S. Cyril, "Hence, the things spoken and

wrought in God-befitting sort, we will allot to God the Word, those spoken and

wrought in lowly wise to the servant's form, lest we fall into the sickness of

Arius' and Eunomius' blasphemy."

What S. Cyril is objecting to is the notion that He who is One with the Father is God the Son absolutely distinct from His own Manhood, that He who said.

My God My God why forsookest Thou Me

is, not God the Son, speaking of and through the Manhood which He had for ever united to Himself but, a man distinct and apart. But even in his quite early writings S. Cyril had never overlooked what the Eastern Bishops were (a year or two after this treatise was written) so anxious to have brought prominently forward, viz. that "as to the Gospel and Apostolic words concerning the Lord, we know that Divines make some common, as to One Person, apportion others, as to two Natures, and give to Christ the God-befitting according to His Godhead, the lowly ones according to His Manhood " (Confession of Eastern Bishops, approved by S. Cyril and incorporated by him in his Ecumenical letter to John of Antioch, Three Epistles p. 72). In his Thesaurus cap. x init., S. Cyril says, "But we must know and believe that the Word being God and Consubstantial in all things with the Father, put on man's nature and hath been made Man, in order that He may both sometimes speak as man by reason of the Economy with flesh, and may also as God utter the things above man as so being by Nature

and when opportunity introduces the need of this. But if any one should wish to refer the things which are more humanly and economically spoken (as 1 said) to His Godhead and again to refer the things which are Divinely spoken to the time wherein He has been made man, such an one will wrong the nature of things and will destroy the Economy: for one while He saith as God,

Verily I say to you, before Abraham was,

I

am,

and again,

I

have come down from out of heaven.

If one wishes to preserve to Him only the God-befitting Dignity, he will utterly take away His being made man in the last times (for He was not in human nature before Abraham was nor yet has He as man come down from Heaven): and again if one should choose to attribute to bare God the Word before the Incarnation the words and acts of the human nature, such an one will do impiously: for what will he do when Christ says

Now has My Soul been troubled

and

is very sorrowful?

will he admit that sorrow and dismay befel the Nature of God and that fear of death gat hold thereof? what when he sees Him crucified, will he admit that the Godhead of the Son suffered this just as man? or will

he repudiate the blasphemy? Therefore let what is suitable thereto be kept to each time and fact and let Theology practise herself not surely in those things whence it is clear that He is speaking as man, but those whence He is from forth the Father as Son and God; and let it allow to the Economy with flesh that He should sometimes say what does not belong to the Godhead bare and by Itself." pp. 72,73. See also de Trinitate ad Herm. dial. 1. p. 398, dial. 6. p. 600 a b, 602 fin.

Hom. Pasch. 7 (A.D. 420) "For as to create in God-befitting manner is not conceived of as pertaining to a man, so is to die alien from God." p. 104 b and through the Homily. These belong to the earlier years of S. Cyril's Episcopate: they do not differ from what S. Cyril wrote about this time, in explanation of his fourth chapter, and in reply to Andrew's criticisms, p. 171 a b, nor from what, in A.D. 432 when the

Egyptian and Eastern Churches had explained to one another what each meant, S. Cyril wrote to Acacius Bishop of Melitene as being what the Eastern Bishops said and as being one of the essential points in which they differed from Nestorius

(Epp. pp. 117, 118 a).

...

S. Cyril in his second

Letter to Successus bishop of Diocaesarea in Isauria, written probably about 3

years after this, explains the Term One Nature Incarnate thus, " For even

if the Only-Begotten Son of God Incarnate and Made man be said by us to be One,

He has not therefore been mixed up (as some please to think) nor has the Nature

of the Word passed into the nature of the flesh nor yet that of the flesh into

His Nature, but, while each abides and is conceived of in its natural property,

H e united unspeakably and unutterably shewed us One Nature of the Son, yet (as

I said) Incarnate. For not merely of things which are simple by nature is the

One rightly used, but also of those which are brought together as compounded;

such as is man, of soul and body: for such things are diverse in form and not

consubstantial one to another; yet united, they made up one nature of man,

albeit in the plan of the compounding, the difference of nature in the things

brought together into Union exists." Epp. p. 143 a b c. The great

estimation in which this letter was held is indicated by its frequent citations

in controversies on the Incarnation. See also the Letter to Acacius Bishop

Melitene, Epp. pp. 115, 116.

See S. Cyril's first Letter to

Successus, Epp. p. 137 d.

The following extract from Tillemont (Hist.

Eccles. Les Apollinaristes, Art 2. t. vii pp. 001, 605 ed. 2. Paris 1700), will

illustrate that dread of Apollinarianism, which not only Nestorius but John of

Antioch (see a letter of his to S.Cyril, Synodicon cap. 80. Baluz. Nova

Collectio Conciliorum t. i. 783; iv. 346 Col.) Theodoret and the Bishops of that

Archiepiscopate felt. Apollinarianism had been their last great heretical

onslaught, only about 60 years previous, and Antioch its head-quarters.

Tillemont says, "Car ne voulant pas reconnoistre qu'il y eust deux

substances et deux natures en J. C, l'une divine et l'autre humaine, ou bien

l'une de Dieu et l'autre de la chair, non seulement ils [les Apollinaristes]

soutenoient, après les Ariens, qu'il avoit une seule nature mixte et composée

de la divine et de l'humaine : mais ils se reduisoient à dire que sa chair

estoit consubstantielle à sa divinité, qu'une partie du Verbe avoit esté

changée en chair, en os, en cheveux, en un mot en un corps et en une nature

toute différente de la sienne, que ce n'avoit pas esté un corps comme le

nostre, qu'il en avoit seulement la forme et l'apparence extérieure, mais qu'il

estoit coeternel à la nature divine, formé de la substance mesme de la sagesse

éternelle et de celle du Verbe changée en un corps passible: Qu'ainsi c'estoit

la substance mesme de la sagesse qui avoit creé le monde, et la divinité du

Fils consubstantielle au Père, qui avoit esté circoncise et attachée a la

croix ; et non un corps terrestre comme le nostre.

Ils ajoutaient, par une consequence bien naturelle de ce faux principe, que la substance de son corps n'estait pas prise de Marie, mais avoit seulement passé par elle comme par un canal [this was the ancient blasphemy of a portion of the Gnostics, see S. Iren. 3. 11. 3. p. 231 O.T.] : d'où vient qu'ils luy refusoient le titre de Mere de Dieu, et qu'ils pretendoient qu'on ne pouvoit dire que le corps de J. C. fust tiré d'elle, sans mettre une quaternité en Dieu au lieu de la Trinité ; de sorte qu'il est visible que selon eux, le corps de J. C. estoit compris dans la Trinité. Ils

disaient aussi que ce corps avait esté avant Marie et que J. C. l'avoit toujours eu, ayant toujours esté fils de l'homme, qu'il l'avoit pris du ciel [S. Cyril in his Ecumenic Letter to John Archbishop of Antioch (see 3 Epistles p. 72) says that some had reported that he himself had held this very thing], qu'il n'avoit eu qu'à descendre en terre avec son corps qui luy estoit uni substantiellement, qu'ainsi ce corps estoit non seulement consubstantiel à la divinité, mais aussi

céleste et increé."

When therefore S. Cyril insists on the Word having been

made flesh,

the

Eastern Bishops thought that while using S.John the Evangelist's words, he was

pressing the

γέγονε

to mean

hath become,

been

actually turned into : and the "One Incarnate Hypostasis of the Word"

seemed to them to mean not Union but the mixture and confusion of the

Apollinarians. Theodoret, in his objections to the 12 chapters which S. Cyril

and his Council had drawn up for Nestorius to sign, does not in general use

language that differs very much from S. Cyril's own mind ; but sets out with the

conviction that S. Cyril was an Apollinarian and so reads and interprets the

chapters as really intended to bring in Apollinarian error secretly by use of

veiled language. Thus in reply to S. Cyril's "for she [the blessed Virgin]

hath borne after the flesh the Word from out of God made flesh " (chapter

1), Theodoret remarks, "we say that He has not been made flesh by nature

nor was God the Word changed into flesh," "it is plain therefore that

the Form of God was not turned into form of servant:" in objection to

Chapter 2, "Superfluous therefore is Personal union, which as I think he is

putting forward instead of

mixture

:" the objection to chapter 3 ends

with the words, "he who is teaching us mixture by means of other

names:" in objection to chapter 5, "but that the Word has been made

flesh by any

turning,

we not only do not say, but we accuse of impiety

them that say so:" the objection to chapter 6 closes, "for not by

being turned did God the Word become flesh, but assumed flesh possessed of an

intellectual soul;" in the objection to chapter 8 occur similarly the

words, "For neither did God the Word receive transformation [

τροπὴν

see

S. James i. 17] nor again did man lose what he was, and become changed into the

nature of God:" the objection to chapter 10 begins, "Not into nature

of flesh was the Unchangeable Nature turned :" in the objection to chapter

11 occur the words, "for first of all, he nowhere mentioned

flesh

endowed

with mind nor confessed that he which was assumed is perfect man, but everywhere

he says flesh, following the doctrine of Apollinarius; next he intersperses in

his words the notion of mixture, infusing it by means of other words."

Hence it is clear that Theodoret's objection was not to the chapters themselves

but to the chapters in that he approached them possessed with the notion that S.

Cyril was an Apollinarian and was endeavouring to disseminate their error by

dishonest use of apparently orthodox language.

Nestorius means that whereas it was the

object of the Arians and Eunomians to assert that God the Son was inferior to

God the Father, supposing all the lowly actions that are recorded of God our

Saviour and His purely Human actions, His hunger and thirst and weariness and

sorrow and pain, could be referred to His Godhead, it would go to make out their

case. Whereas the actions are not referred to the Godhead considered by Itself,

but all the actions recorded of our Lord after His Birth in the flesh, whether

Divine or Human, are referred to One Person, God and Man in One, of God the Son.

Just as (to use our little comparisons to help our frail understanding) no

distinction is made in human actions; we say, he ate, he slept, he read, he

wrote, he thought: we do not distinguish and say, his body ate, his body slept,

his soul read, or wrote, or thought. Part of this passage is quoted by S. Cyril

in his defence of his fourth chapter against Andrew. For the last portion of the

extract compare serm 2, p. 68, Bal.

One

is added on the authority of

a Syriac citation in a MS. in the British Museum, Cod add. 14533 fol. 9and again

fol. 30. The Roman editors had given it in their margin as a conjectural

emendation.

i.e. as one of the things not imparted

to it, but so part of its own being, that it may not lose it without ceasing to

be what it is.

Nestorius in the fourth of the sermons

which Mercator has published (preached after he had received from S. Cyril the

Great Letter of the Alexandrine Synod with the 12 Chapters appended, accompanied

by Pope S. Celestine's Letter), preached against opponents of his and re-affirms

what he had said before, repeating a few words here and there from the older

sermon from which these extracts were taken: a sermon not perhaps belonging to

the volume which was first published (see above p. 4) but preached (as was

certainly the next piece, p. 51) to oppose S. Cyril's letter to monks, p. 13

In this sermon 4, p. 82 Nestorius says, "

God sent His Son,

a name

common to the natures, i. e., of man and God. He did not say, God sending God

the Word." See too further on where other similarities or re-capitulations

are referred to in margin. The passage which stands at the head of § 13 (see

below p. 77) is from serm. 2. p. 65 Bal. and some of it also in serm. 1. p. 55.

The whole passage as cited here and in the Council of Ephesus (see next note)

is given by Mercator with the title,

From the book of Nestorius himself, out of the 16th quire, on dogma.

the volume from which the extracts were taken for the Council of Ephesus, the

sermon on dogma seems to have nearly followed that which Mercator gives us

complete pp. 56-70, and which is there called sermon 2: for the extracts from

this sermon 2 are extracted from the 15th and 10th quires, see

Mercatoris

opera

pp. 205, 207, 210 Bal.: while the two extracts given from the sermon

on Dogma are from the 16th and 17th quires, viz. this one from the 16th (Merc.

p. 201, or 17th as Greek edd.) and the extract at the head of § 8 below from

the 17th quire (Merc. p. 205). The Greek editions of the council however agree

with Mercator in styling this extract

εἰς

δόγμα

but omit the words in the title

to the other extract, appending it instead to two citations from the 15th quire;

one of which is, in part, at the head of § 14, the other is given by S. Cyril

both there and in his letter to Acacius of Melitene written after the

reconcilation with the Eastern Bishops, Epp. p. 115. 1.5-9.

i. e. S. Cyril himself: for Nestorius

looked not kindly on S. Cyril's Letter to the monks, to which (p. 13 b) he is

here referring, see note on book 4 § 6 below.

10.

The present text as it now stands is

ταῦτα

που καὶ σαυτὸν

the

Roman Editors conjecture

κατὰ

for

καὶ

but it is just as

likely that the difficulty is occasioned by omission from homoeoteleuton, from

which even a good MS. (as is the one in which the Greek text of these books is

preserved) is rarely exempt.

11.

i. e., the tribute money of

half a shekel which was the acknowledgement of God's sovereignty appointed in

the first instance by God, (Exod. xxx. 12-16). (It does not appear to have been a

regular tax, though there seems an allusion to it in (2 Kings xii. 4),

the money of every one that passeth

the

account. This tax our Lord paid, S. Matt, xvii. 24-27, yet told S. Peter that He

was

free,

as a Son.) Every male who had attained the age of 20 was to

pay: it amounted to a hundred talents, 1775 shekels of silver: with the hundred

talents were cast a hundred silver sockets for the sanctuary and the vail, the

1775 silver shekels were used in making hooks for the pillars and in overlaying

the chapiters (Exod. xxxviii, 25-28).

Dr. Edersheim, learned in Jewish customs and deeply versed in their books,

tells us, " It had only been about a century before [our Lord's payment for

Himself and S. Peter], during the reign of Salome-Alexandra (about 78 B. C),

that the Pharisaical party, being then in power, had carried an enactment by

which the Temple-tribute was to be enforced at law.....It is a matter of doubt

whether the half-shekel had ever been intended as an annual payment. Its first

enactment was under exceptional circumstances, and the mode in which, as we are

informed a similar collection was made during the reign of Joash(2

Chron.xxiv.6-11) suggests the question whether the original institution by Moses

was not treated rather as affording a precedent than as laying down a binding

rule. At the time of Nehemiah we read only of a self-imposed ordinance and at

the rate of a third, not a half shekel (Neh. x. 32-34). But long before the

coming of Christ very different views prevailed." The Temple, its ministry

and Services pp. 49, 50 (Religious Tract Society). Dr. Edersheim tells us that

the money was paid in the month previous to the Passover, pp. 47, 48.

12.

In this passage as cited before the

Council of Ephesus are given the words which S. Cyril also (see de Trin.dial. 6.

p. 589 e and elsewhere,) with the Alexandrine MS. of the LXX. reads,

ἡγιασμένοι

εἰσιν

they have been sanctified

(corresponding

My sanctified ones

in our version)

and I lead them.

These words

are required to explain Nestorius' assertion that the Babylonian was called

holy.

13.

See this at greater length in S.

Cyril's Glaphyra on Exodus, lib. i. cap. 4. pp. 305 sq. and especially 306 c;

also lib. iii. 3. pp. 327 sq.

14.

This contrast between our Master and

our fellow-servants to whom He had delegated His authority before His own

Advent, is argued on by S. Cyril below, Schol. § 26, also Thes. cap. 12 p. 108

c d and often.

15.

S. Cyril in his Thesaurus, cap. 25 p.

238 d says, " He is therefore Only-Begotten by Nature, as Only out of the

Father, God out of God, and Light beaming forth of Light: First-Begotten for our

sakes, in order that all the creation engrafted as it were in a certain immortal

root and springing up out of Him Who ever is (for all things have been made

through Him and consist) might itself too be preserved for aye." (... is

Aubert's text slightly emended from the beautiful Munich Codex 331, written in

the tenth century). See also De Trin. ad Herm. dial. l.p. 405 c: and 7th Paschal

homily (A.D. 420) p. 103; 10th Paschal homily (A.D. 423) p. 159 e.

16.

This is given differently in

Marius Mercator's collection of extracts made by S.Cyril from Nestorius'writings.

The 17th extract is as follows, "

Also from another tractate quire

25.

Wherefore I would have you secure in your assent or acclamation [...,

doubt rightly]. There is no severance of the connection and of Godhead [

deitatis,

perhaps,

dignitatis, dignity

]

nor of the sway. In that the Son is Christ, there is no severance in these, but

in regard to Godhead and manhood there is severance. In that He is Christ, the

Son is undivided, in that He is Son, He is undivided. For we have not two

christs and two sons, nor is there with us a first christ and a second, nor one

and another, nor again one son and again another son, but Himself the Same,

Himself a twofold Son, not in respect of dignity but of nature." p. 117 ed.

Baluz.

17.

flesh and body.

Thus I heave

translated, following the translation given of this piece of S. Cyril hy the

Syriac MS. in the British Museum (Add. 17154 fol. 21 v) written in the seventh

century. The MS. contains a correspondence betweeh Severus Archbishop of Antioch

and Sergius the Grammarian on the controversy about the two Natures in the

Incarnation. Severus quotes S. Cyril throughout his writings, and this passage

is cited in Severus' reply to Sergius' second letter. The Greek has the more

usual phrase,

flesh and blood.

18.

S. Cyril had looked on these words of

Nestorius as replete with gravest untruth, for S. Cyril's seventh chapter is,

"If any says that Jesus has been in-wrought-in as man by God the Word and

that the good glory of the Only-Begotten has been put around Him as though He

were other than He, be he anathema." They may belong to one of Nestorius'

earlier sermons. Mercator (p. 110 ed. Bal.) cites them as being out of the

second volume, first quire (i. e. of one of the volumes of published sermons,

see above p. 48 note n). Mercator tells us that this volume began, "I have

yet much to say to you." (Mercator has apparently only three extracts out

of the first volume, i.e. two on the Creed, and the one given above p. 51.) In

the extracts made for the Council of Ephesus, part of the passage is also cited

and there too as taken out of the first quire: see Merc. p. 207, top of page,

and the corresponding place in the different editions of the Council of Ephesus.

19.

S. Cyril in his sixth Dialogue

to Hermias explains that "Hence He is glorified by the Father not as though

He needed glory while conceived of as apart from flesh, and believed God forth

of God : but since He was man, which does not possess as fruit of his proper

nature, the power of working God-befitting acts, He receives the power by the

Union and Concurrence (...) Unspeakable such as is conceived to be that of the

Word with His human nature." De Trin. ad Herm. dial. 6. p. 601 a b.

20.

See this also in the Quod Unus

Christus, below.

21.

i.e. S. Cyril says here and elsewhere

(de recta fide ad Imperatorem 32 e, ad Arcadiam Marinamque 47 b 70 e 85 e 115 d

120 d, ad Pulcheriam et Eudociam 131 b 148 b, in his Explanation of XIth

chapter, and three or four times in the treatise Quod Unus Christus) that the

name Jesus Christ does not belong to God the Son before the Incarnation, except

as looking on to the Incarnation (de recta fide ad Arcadiam Marinamque 120 d)

but is the name of God the Son Incarnate God and Man : not as though there were

a connection with Christ but because "God and Man are One Christ."

22.

This passage again is from sermon 2

in Mercator's selection: it occurs at p. 64 Bal. In the sermon itself, after

who have told you the truth,

added,

but now He says, why seek ye to kill Me that Man who was crowned

&c.

Words here and there are quoted by the same Mercator, as translations of S.

Cyril's citations of Nestorius (p. 114 Bal.) and some other words among the

passages cited before Council of Ephesus where they are said to be taken from

the sixteenth quire, (ib. p. 207 & Conc. t. iii. 1068 Col.)

23.

These words are also a portion of

serm. 2 (see p. 65 Baluz.). The closing words,

and that every tongue should confess Lord Jesus Christ,

are

there omitted but seem to have formed part of the sermon, since S. Cyril a

little below says that Nestorius for some reason or other had omitted to add,

to the glory of God the Father.

do not know where Nestorius used the words cited a little before,

But yea He said to

the leper, I will, &c.

24.

These words are extant in Nestorius'

first sermon p. 55 Baluz, but some phrases are repeated in serm. 2 p. 65 just

following S. Cyril's last citation. The words,

Because of the wearer I reverence the worn,

are

not in this part of the second sermon, yet are quoted (pp. 114, 115) in a long

piece extracted (all but these words) from serm. 2, and again in page 207 in an

extract from the 16th quire in which this sermon was. The words here cited are

likewise cited by S. Cyril in his Great Letter to Nestorius. Three Epistles, p.

64.

25.

S. Cyril loves to quote this loyal

adoration of our Master on the part of the born-blind and our Master's

acceptance of it; see it mentioned again below Schol. § 36 and de recta fide to

the Emperor Theodosius, 31 a.

26.

This belongs to serm. 2. and follows

the last quotation, a few words only intervening. A few words are also quoted in

the Great Letter to Nest. see note v.

27.

See this expression

physical union

unity of Nature

the Union of the Nature of God and the Nature of man in Christ in S. Cyril's

third chapter. S, Cyril says in his Explanation of his third chapter that he

used

physical

in the sense of

true.

The word

physical

natural,

perplexed

Andrew of Samosata, who in his objection to that chapter supposes

natural

have been used in contrast with

supernatural.

Theodoret, in his objection, replies that even man himself, though really

one, is allowed to be spoken of as twofold. S. Cyril does not object to this :

he speaks in regard to our Lord, of dividing the Natures in one's conception of

them. " Hence in regard of thought and of only seeing with the eyes of the

soul how the Only-Begotten became man, we say that the natures united are two,

but that the Word of God Incarnate and made man, is One Christ and Son and

Lord." Ep. 1 to Successus, p. 137 e. Again, " But they [i. e. they who

thought one ought to speak of two natures as actually existent] did not know

that things which are severed otherwise than in mere conception of them, these

will full surely part off one from the other wholly and separately into

diverseness. Take for example a man: we conceive of two natures in him, one, of

the soul, the other, of the body. But severing them in mere idea, and in subtil

conception or fantasy of the mind, admitting the difference, we do not put the

natures apart nor give them their force throughout by severing, but we conceive

of One ; so that the two are no longer two, but through both is One living

creature made up. Hence though one speak of the nature of manhood and Godhead in

Emmanuel, yet has the manhood become the Word's own, and He is conceived of as

One Son with it." Ep. 2. to Successus, p. 145 b c.

28.

something seems to have dropped out

here. The Roman Editors conjectured

ἴεται

hastens along

for

οἴεται

thinks:

"he hastens along the perverted way, falling from the straight

path."

29.

These two pieces are both quoted

before the Council of Ephesus, see pp. 204, 206 Bal. where they are called

from the fifteenth quire;

the

Greek editions add

on dogma.

S. Cyril cites also the last portion in his

letter to Acacius of Melitene Epp. p. 115 a, see above p. 49 note n.

This text was transcribed by Roger Pearse, 2005. All material on this page is in the public domain - copy freely.

Greek text is rendered using

unicode

Early Church Fathers - Additional Texts

Cyril of Alexandria, Five Tomes Against Nestorius. LFC 47 (1881)

Book 3. pp.81-124.

TOME III.

[Translated by P.E. P

USEY

]

(Ps. xviii. 11) hints at the depth of Christ's mystery. Gifts through Incarnation. Is, xlv. 14, 15 the Incarnate Son. S. John

i. 14. 2 Sam. vii. 12-14 explained by S. Paul. 1 Sam. ii. 35. The WORD Incarnate worshipped by Angels worships with us and is our High Priest. GOD the

WORD sent and how: so our High Priest. Sent and High Priest when Incarnate., Possessor of Godhead, a misnomer. (Heb. v. 1). He makes us His brothers. 'Yesterday to-day and for ever.' S. John

i. 30: iii. 13: (Micah v. 2), Is. liii. 8. (Gen. xxxii. 24) sqq. High Priesthood belongs to Incarnation. 'Sent' of God is a human word and to be understood worthily of God. The Son Incarnate gives the Holy Ghost as God, receives as man. High priesthood. Growth "in wisdom and stature and

favour." Union alone permits to attribute to One the properties of either manhood or Godhead. The Paschal Lamb and the sacrifice for sin of a young bullock types of the sinlessness of our Sacrifice.

Great confessedly

is the mystery of godliness,

and marvelled at by the holy Angels themselves also, and hereto the most wise Paul confirms us saying,

To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly

places

might be known through the Church the manifold wisdom of God according to the eternal purpose which He purposed in our Lord Jesus Christ, in Whom we have boldness and access with confidence through faith.

For wisdom verily, and that not human (how could it?) but Divine rather and deposited in certain ineffable depths and incomprehensibilities, is the Mystery of Christ. And the blessed David singeth,

And He made darkness His secret place, around Him His pavilion dark water in clouds of the skies,

palling

darkness

(I suppose) nought else save altogether the dim conception of ideas, falling like mist upon the eyes of the understanding.

We say therefore that the mystery of Christ hath by no means needed subtil investigations and search beyond the reach of mind, but faith rather that holds the tradition simple and guileless. Thus we ourselves also have

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been taught and believed that God the Father sent His own Son who is by Nature God, made Man and born of a woman after the flesh, that He might justify them that believe on Him and having freed from stumblings through ignorance, by His Good and most gentle authority, might present them clean and undefiled through Him to God the Father, and might make

partakers of

His own

Divine Nature

them who are under death and decay, yea and might preach recovery

of sight to the blind,

and might bring over the flocks which had strayed into the light of the true knowledge of God, and might teach at length who it is Who is by Nature and truly God and the Creator of all. For He became

the savour of

the

knowledge

of God the Father, and in Him we have beheld Him out of Whom He was begotten by Nature and know clearly the way that leadeth us unto everlasting life. That thus the Son should beam upon the crowd of the Gentiles too, hath the blessed Prophet Isaiah cried beforehand saying,

Thus saith the Lord,

Egypt toiled and the merchandise of the Ethiopians, and the Sabeans, men of stature, shall pass over unto Thee and they shall be Thy servants, and they shall come after Thee bound in fetters: and they shall worship Thee, and in Thee shall they pray; for in Thee is God, and there is no God save Thee, for

THOU

art God and we knew it not, the God of Israel

the Saviour.

And it is said somewhere to the Son, as from the Person again of God the Father,

Lo, I have set Thee for

a covenant of the race

for a light of the nations, that Thou mayest be for salvation unto the end of the earth.

For

He hath instituted to them of the blood and race of Israel, the new covenant,

the first having waxen old,

and He beamed as far as the boundaries of that beneath the sky also, to the nations and people in every place and city. For they have worshipped Him yea and they follow Him spiritually, holden by the indissoluble chains of love, as in

fetters

and well-nigh say what is in the Prophet Jeremiah,

Behold

WE

will be Thine for

THOU art

the Lord our God.

See (I pray) the vigilance of the Prophet's thoughts,

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They shall worship Thee

(he says)

and in Thee shall they pray, for in Thee is God, and there is no God beside Thee.

He knew then confessedly as being Spirit-clad the Word Out of God the Father, Who should

tabernacle in us,

as saith the blessed Evangelist John: therefore he saith that

God is in Thee;

yet hath he not suffered Emmanuel to be Severed into two gods, but even though the Only-Begotten was made man, he acknowledged Him even so as One and straightway added,

There is no God save Thee.

For Consider accurately the Prophet's utterance. For having first declared (as I said) that

God is in Thee,

he hath not added, And there is no God save He that is in Thee, but gathering it into the Unity of the Economy, says

There is no God beside Thee.

But that the Only-Begotten Word of God made man, is declared to us by the (so to speak) whole God-inspired Scripture, is easy to shew without toil by very many proofs: but I think it is enough for the present to say this. God said somewhere to blessed David,

And I will set up out of thy seed after thee Him who shall proceed out of thy bowels and I will prepare His Kingdom: He shall build an house for My Name and I will stablish His Throne for ever, and\ will be to Him a Father and He shall be to Me a Son.

But some one (I suppose) will say that these things were said not of Emmanuel, but of Solomon rather: yet the most wise Paul will strenuously oppose those who would thus understand it, for he takes the words of Christ and says that it is He to Whom it has been said by God the Father,

I

will be to Him a Father and He shall be to Me a Son.

But that when made like unto us,

i. e., Man, He should offer to God the Father, all beneath the sky saved through faith in Him, He made known saying elsewhere,

And I will raise Me up a faithful Priest who shall do all which

in Mine heart and in My soul, and I will build Him a sure house and He

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shall walk before Me for ever.

Observe (I pray) that having elsewhere said,

He shall build an house for My Name,

the Father here promises to rear the house for the Son. And the Divine Paul understanding this, said that Moses was

faithful in all My house

having the measure pertaining to a servant,

but Christ as a Son over His own house, Whose House are

WE; and the mode of the ministry, things pertaining to us, not the blood of bulls and of calves, but the confession of the faith of us all. And blessed Paul will again certify it, writing thus,

Wherefore holy brethren partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Jesus, who was faithful to Him That appointed Him.

We say therefore that the Word out of God the Father, when receiving servant's form He is said to have been emptied for our sake, then too did abase Himself in the measure of the human nature, whereto will pertain (and very reasonably) both the seeming to be sent and the accounting the ministry the token of the very highest

honour. For if when He became as we, He have worshipped with us as Man, albeit the Host above and the holy spirits worship Him, and Moses says of Him, Re

joice O ye heavens with Him and let all the sons of God worship Him;

what is there strange or what inconvenient to the nature of the Economy if He have been called

High Priest

as offering for us for an odour of a sweet smell Himself and us through Himself and in Himself to God the Father? for

we are a sweet savour of Christ,

as it is written. But this noble person again affirms that these things have been wrought in no fit order, and all but smiles at those who conceive that these things were so, and impiously finding fault with the Divine purposes, says thus:

"For they hearing the name of

Apostle,

deem that God the Word was Apostle; reading the name

High Priest,

they fancy that the Godhead was High Priest, by a species of paradoxical craziness: for who learning of the ministry

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of an Apostle, would not forthwith know that a man is indicated? who on hearing the appellation of High Priest, would suppose that the Essence of Godhead were High Priest? for if the Godhead be High Priest, who is he who is served by the ministry of the High Priesthood? if God be the

Offerer, there is none to whom offering is made: for what is there worthy of Godhead that as less It should offer to the greater?" And hereto he adds, "Whence then is God supposed by them to have been now called High Priest Who needeth not sacrifices for His own advancement like the high priests? Is the possessor of Godhead, taken from among men, ordained for men in things God-ward?"

§1. Therefore dost thou say that the Word of God has not been even sent into the world? The most wise Paul hath cozened (it appears) those who were called through him, for he said,

God sent forth His Son made of a woman, made under the law:

the blessed David too will be found according to thee idly romancing and seeking impossible things, for he said somewhere to God the Father in Heaven,

O send out Thy Light and Thy Truth.

And what (tell me) will not the Son Himself too speak falsely in saying,

For God sent not His Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world through Him might he saved,

and again, I

came forth from the Father and am come.

The wise John too writes somewhere of Him,

He that receiveth His testimony set to his seal that God is true, for He Whom God sent speaketh God's words.

But we say that the Word of God hath been sent, having with the measures of the emptying the name and fact of being sent: but YOU why do you unlearnedly fear and blush to allot to Him the name and fact both of the apostolate and the High-priesthood? would it befit (do you suppose) as other than He, the man born of a woman having (according to you) a mere connection

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and that in equality of dignity only? how then is the Word being God seen to profit any longer our condition, if we have been even presented to God the Father through

another? for no longer

have we had the access through Him,

but a man like us has become our mediator having the name of Godhead put on.

Yea (says he) the priest's office is petty to the Word begotten out of God the Father. Petty confessedly, I agree with you enunciating the truth, but not in bare

Godhead did He dawn on those upon the earth, but rather made man as we, to whom the priesthood is some great and choice thing. But if He refused the priest's office as belonging to man, or indeed ought that appertains to the measure of bond-service, how were it not better far, before this to refuse too the Incarnation?

Yet He rejected not for our sakes the Birth. But this man (as I said) is ashamed of the truth, shewing himself unwise and unskilled, albeit the blessed Paul

saith,

For I

am not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth.

And one may

well marvel that the Word of God for the salvation and life of all endured to suffer so great abasement, which the inventor for us of idle teachings is (I know not how) ashamed merely to acknowledge, albeit he ought to wonder hereat and to cry with the blessed Prophet,

O Lord, I have

heard Thy report and was afraid, I considered Thy works and was amazed.

But since the whole God-inspired Scripture in a manner rises up against him, and arrays against him the truth, shewing that his discourse in favour of his own inventions, cold and without any real being and destitute of support from any quarter, lacks in no small degree the conceptions and ideas that tend unto Tightness and truth; hence what no one of those well reported of for rightness of doctrine, ever either thought or said, this he makes the occasion of his discourse, and fights with shadows and strains himself to no purpose, no one

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opposing him or wishing to contend about these matters. And this (I deem) is to

beat the air.

For he said "Who on learning of the ministry of an apostle would not forthwith know that a man is indicated? who on hearing the appellation of High Priest would suppose that the Essence of Godhead were High-Priest?"

Since therefore there is no one who says this, with whom (tell me) are you striving, and as though yourself alone were overthrowing what is condemned by the voice of all, are haply thinking that your opposition is worthy even of

honours? albeit how is it not true that since no one saith this, it is you who are bringing forward what it were better to be silent on and not to instil into the souls of the more simple? For who is so crazed as to, suppose that the Essence 'of Godhead were High Priest?' Aaron was a man, albeit he obtained preeminence of the rest in Divine Priesthood. How then will any one suppose that the Essence of Godhead is High Priest, or how will he not wholly and surely confess that mention is made of a man when the brother of Moses is named to us as High Priest? Yet he putting forth some language that commonly belongs to and befits every High Priest of those among us, essays to undo the marvel of the Economy understood in Christ, and dares to shake from the very foundations our Divine Mystery, not considering that Christ hath founded the

Church upon

rock, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against her.

For he no wise condescends to follow the common doctrine and that of all who are wont to think aright, but he alone innovates without examination what he pleases. For WE (as I said before) say that the Word out of God the Father, made Man, offered to Himself and to the Father the confession of our faith and wrought an Economy befitting and by no means out of harmony with the measures of the emptying.

But not so does it seem to him, but he

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taking separately and apart him that is from forth the holy Virgin as though another Christ than the Word That is out of God the Father, says that he became

the Apostle and high priest of our confession

and supposes that he is thinking what conduce unto piety when he says, "If God be the

offerer, there is none to whom offering is made, for what is there worthy of Godhead that as though less It should make offering to the greater?"

Now if there were any who were contending and saying that He That is truly Word out of God the Father had been appointed to office of priesthood even before the Incarnation and were in the measure of ministry and were for this reason to be called High Priest and Apostle, he would have given a wise rebuke, and one would say that his argument hereon had been made in season. For not in lack of priests is the Nature That rules all, that Himself should minister therein. But since the Only-Begotten, being God by Nature and receiving from the hands of those who execute the Priest's office their ministrations, hath descended unto the measure of those appointed unto the priesthood, having become Man (as I said), nought strange will it be if He be called by us High Priest too. Hath He not come down in servant's form, having taken that is the form of a servant, albeit Impress and Brightness of the Father's Glory? None will doubt it. When therefore He Who is in His own Nature Free

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as God, He Who is in the Form and Equality of the Father, has been called bond, economically not thrusting from Him the measure of those who are under the yoke of bondage, why dost thou fear to call Him High Priest too by reason of the Manhood? for He dedicates us for an odour of a sweet smell through faith, and Himself hath He offered for us as a most sweet-smelling offering to the Father.

But he (saying I know not what) straightway subjoins to these things; "Whence then were God supposed by them to have been now called High Priest Who needeth not sacrifices for His own advancement? is the possessor of Godhead taken from among men appointed for men in things God-ward?" Whence then Christ,

i. e., the Word out of God made man, was, or why He was called, Apostle and High Priest, our discourse has already clearly

shewn, but I think it right not to leave unexamined his unwonted and strange utterance. For doth he say that the Word out of God is Possessor of Godhead, even though any should wish to conceive of Him apart

and without flesh? doth he define His Godhead as other than He? whereof I don't know how (as he

saith) He hath become possessor, as though it accrued to Him and came to Him from without, although once not God by Nature, like what was said by that ancient woman, I mean Eve, when she bare Seth,

I gat a man through God.

But this I deem is wholly to be spurned by him and by all. Why then doth he speak with inexactness, and fling about words without understanding, in matters so cogent? would not one earn laughter and accusal of insanity, if one chose to say that any among us were the possessor of human nature, or a horse of horse-nature? who then is the possessor of Godhead, who

taken from men is ordained in things to Godward?

Haply he will say severing into two the One Christ, Him that is forth of the Holy Virgin: for to this I suppose now too is his aim directed.

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Hath the Godhead then (tell me) become the acquisition

of a man, and hath it befallen any one of us, to become God by Nature and in truth and to be rich in the excellence of the Essence that is above all and Supreme? Away with the ill-counsel, o man, for none of those accounted among things generate may acquire and have as his own the Nature of Godhead: His own was the Body of the Word and as one therewith God and Christ and Son and Lord hath the creation worshipped, and the Heavens do praise and we with them. For as the Prophet saith,

His Goodness

covered the Heavens and of His Praise was the earth

full,

not as though a man gat Godhead (for how or whence could he?) but that the Word out of God the Father had come into possession of flesh of man. But be it that he who was

taken out of men

was owner of Godhead (as seems good to yourself), how

ordained in things to Godward,

i. e., as High Priest? will he therefore bare of the Godhead which he gat, minister in the Priest's office to God, or already having it as his own? for this and nought else will the saying that he gat it signify. But if bare of it, he gat it not; if having it as his own, Godhead will surely minister in the Priest's office to God. Why then do you wander distractedly and jumble all together and blush not, stamping with false mark the tradition of the Faith?

The Word out of God the Father hath cogent reason even though He be said to execute the Priest's Office before the Father; for He has been styled Priest not apart from flesh, but made (as I said) as we, to whom the glory of the priesthood is accounted an honour.

In another way too it is not hard to see that it is the absurdest possible thing and replete with much folly to say that he who was

taken out of men and ordained unto God-ward,

is possessor of Godhead; for if he were taken by God, how possessed he the Nature Which took him? for that which is taken will rather belong to him who took it, as a possession, not that which is taken be the

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possessor. As for example, A man has become the possessor of wealth, or again of skill unto anything: is it not plain to all that he will not himself be the possession of wealth or again of the skill that accrued to him, but rather the possessor of what he has gotten? but this is I think in no way doubtful.

Hence if on enquiring into the mode of the Incarnation of the Only-Begotten, we find that man became God as coming into possession of Godhead, let him be called (after your phrase) possessor of Godhead, for his hath the Godhead become. But if the Word being God

came into

possession of the seed of Abraham,

and being in the form of the Father, hath become Man, receiving

the servant's form,

how would one not be distraught, if he chose to say that that which was taken possessed the Nature That acquired it and hath not rather become the very own of Him Who took it?

But that he carries round the force of his own words and inventions and moreover the very name of high Priesthood in unlearned wise unto a mere man born from forth a woman, bearing it away from the Only-Begotten and Word That is out of the Father, he will make manifest by what follows too: for he has written again on this wise:

Not

Angels doth He take hold of, but Abraham's seed He taketh hold of.

Is the Godhead Abraham's seed? Hear the following utterance too:

Wherefore it behoved Him,

saith,

all things to be made like unto His brethren.

Had God the Word any brothers like unto His Godhead? Mark what is straightway joined on to these,

That He might be made a merciful and faithful High Priest in things to God-ward, for in that He Himself hath suffered being tempted, He is able to succour them that are tempted.

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Therefore He Who suffered is

a merciful High Priest:

passible is the Temple, not the quickening God of him that has suffered: the

seed of Abraham

is he which is

yesterday and to-day,

as Paul

saith, not He That saith,

Before Abraham was

I

am.

Like to his brethren in all things is he which assumed brother-hood of human soul and flesh and not He which

saith,

He that hath seen Me

hath seen the Father.

§2. The Word therefore being God

took

(as he too hath just now confessed)

Abraham's seed;

how then is he that is forth of the seed of Abraham any longer possessor of Godhead, if he were taken by God, did not himself take Godhead?

The seed of Abraham

then will by no means be the Nature of Godhead, but rather hath become the Body of God the Word, according to the Scriptures, and His Own, and He Who in His own proper Nature is uncounted among the creation as God, when He became Man who is part of the creation, then, then and with reason deigns He to call us brothers saying,

I will declare Thy Name unto My brethren.

But that by reason of the measure of emptiness, the Word out of God the Father hath descended even to having to call those upon the earth His brothers, the most wise Paul will clearly

shew, writing of Him and

us,

For both He That sanctifieth and they who are being sanctified are all out of one, for which cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren saying, I will declare Thy Name unto

My brethren.

For before the Incarnation, exceeding petty to the Word Which sprang of God was the name of brotherhood with us: but when He had descended unto voluntary emptiness, petty was it thus too, yet hath it come fitly in, for He hath partaken of blood and flesh and of those in flesh and blood has been styled Brother. For if He is sanctified in that He have become Man albeit God by Nature and Himself the Giver of the Spirit, how if He be called Brother too, will it not be so said in due order? for for this cause He hath become as we that He might render us brothers and free,

for as many

(it says)

as received Him,

to them gave He authority to become children of God, to them

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that believe on His Name, which were begotten not out of blood nor out of the will of the flesh nor out of the will of man

but out of God.

For the Word out of God the Father has been with us born after the flesh that we too might be enriched with the birth out of God through the Spirit, no longer termed children of flesh but transelemented rather into what was above nature and termed sons of God by grace: for He has been made as one of us who is by Nature and truly Only-Begotten Son.

And unerring is the word; the Divine-uttering Paul will give us assurance thereto, saying on this wise,

And because

ye are sons, God sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying Abba Father.

Why then do you offer violence to the wisdom of the economy as though it appeared to have been wrought in no fitting order, in that you say, "Is the Godhead

Abraham's

seed? had He any brothers like to the Godhead?" Is not this clear madness? for the absurdly enquiring into and bearing away unto blasphemy, things so right and unblameable in respect of the Economy in Christ, what else is it than proof of the most utter distraction? for confessedly in respeot of the nature of the body or of human nature perfect as far as itself is concerned, has the Word out of God the Father been made

like unto

us and in every thing like save sin alone. But I will ask him who says "Had God the Word any brothers like to the Godhead?" what idea (I pray) had the most holy Paul in his mind when he wrote to certain,

Little children of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you,

and elsewhere too to those who through faith are perfected in spirit,

But

WE

all with unveiled face

reflecting the glory of the Lord are changed into His image from glory to glory as by the Lord the Spirit; now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord, there liberty?

Doth he therefore say this to the Galatians as not having the impress in regard to bodily freedom, of that which is of the seed of David after the flesh, but is he travailing again with them that Christ after the flesh may somehow be engraven on them and formed in them? albeit how will not

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every body (I suppose) unhesitatingly say, that all who are on the earth are conformed one to another and to Christ Himself, in so far as He is conceived of as man, Who is both Man and with us? what formation then unto Christ was it that was sought for in them? or how are WE

transformed from glory to glory,

what form leaving, unto what are we

transelemented? Let therefore the Divine initiator come forward and teach us, the Priest

of the Divine Mysteries, the

teacher of the Gentiles in faith and verity; for whom

(says he)

He knew, and predestinated

to be

conformed to the image of His Son, them, He also called.

Therefore (as I said just now) in that He was made man and was of the seed of Abraham, we all are conformed to Him: all therefore who are on earth, the Father both fore-knew and fore-ordained;

and these having called He

sanctified

and

glorified.

But verily not all were fore-ordained, not all were sanctified or glorified:----the fact therefore of conformation unto the Son will not be conceived of as existing in the nature alone of the flesh or of manhood, but in another way also, and this the blessed Paul sets before ua saying,

And as we bare the image of the earthy we shall bear the image too of the heavenly

; calling

the image of the earthy,

that of our forefather Adam,

of the heavenly,

that of Christ. What then first is the image of our forefather? proneness to sin, becoming under death and decay. What again that of the heavenly? being in no wise overcome of passions, not knowing to transgress, not being subject to death and decay, holiness, righteousness, and whatever are akin to and like these. But these (I suppose) will befit the Divine and Untaint Nature to possess: for superior to both sin and decay is Holiness and Righteousness. Herein does the Word out of God the Father restore us too, rendering us

partakers of

His own

Divine Nature

through the Spirit.

He has therefore brothers like to Himself and bearing the image of His Divine Nature, in regard of holiness; for thus is

Christ formed in

us, the Holy Ghost as it were transelementing us from things human unto those that are

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His own. Therefore to us too said the blessed Paul,

But

YE

are not in the flesh, but in the spirit.

Therefore the Son transfers not ought at all of things that have been made into the Nature of His own Godhead (for that were impossible): but there is impressed on those who have been made partakers of His Divine Nature through their partaking of the Holy Ghost the spiritual Likeness with Him, and the Beauty of the Ineffable Godhead flashes upon the souls of the saints. Why then dost thou assigning the mere and alone likeness of the flesh, not blush, disregarding the Divine and Spiritual forming, yea rather taking it utterly away? Yet the Lord of all and Only-Begotten God lowered Himself unto emptiness for our sakes, that He might bestow on us the Dignity of brother-hood with Him and the Beauty worthy of all love, of His Innate Nobility: and this man, bereaving us of all that is most lovely, says that a mere man hath become our brother and shews that sure (as he supposes) is his account hereof, adding "Mark too what is straightway joined on to these,

That He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things God-ward, for in that He Himself hath suffered being tempted, He is able to succour them that are tempted.

Therefore

a merciful

High Priest is He That suffered: passible is the Temple, not the quickening God of him which hath suffered." Therefore that by choosing thus to think and moreover daring to say it too, he severs again into distinct hypostases and into two Persons, the Word from forth God the Father and him whom himself has just introduced to us as a God-bearing man, if so be that one and apart by himself is he that suffered, and another he that

quickeneth, I suppose that no one whatever will doubt.

But in another way also is he beside himself, having quaffed wine

from forth the vine of Sodom,

and drunk with error and haply not even knowing what he

saith: for where hath the Word out of God the Father been called (I shudder at saying it) the God of Christ? for there is One Lord Jesus Christ, and one faith in Him, not as

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though in two distinct persons, but as through one Baptism into One Son and God and Lord, the Word out of God the Father even when He became Man. For not because He became as we, will He lose the being God (how should He?) nor yet because He is God by Nature, doth He hold the likeness to us inadmissible nor will He reject the being man; but as He hath remained in human nature God, so being both in the Nature and Pre-eminence of the Godhead, none the less is He Man. Both therefore in the Same, and One God and Man is Emmanuel.

But this good man rejecting the mode of the Economy as uncomely, removeth from God the Word the human, that He may at last be clearly seen to have in no way aided our condition. For he says that not He became an

High Priest

both

Merciful and Faithful,

but allots this rather to him that suffered as being other than He. Yet how should he not, if he had desired to be a wise initiator, have made an exact muster of the expressions and ideas that are in the God-inspired Scripture and considered that this is a thing which is both truly God-befitting and not apart from what befits and beseems the emptying: and how we will say as briefly as we can.

The God of all uttered the Law to them of old, Moses being mediator. But there was not in the Law the power of achieving good without any blame, to those who wished

it (for it

hath perfected nothing)

. But neither was

the first

covenant found

faultless,

but the all-wise Paul called it

the ministry of condemnation

. I hear him say,

We know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may become under sentence before God, because by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in His sight,

(for

the Law worketh

unto

wrath,

and

the Letter killeth),

and as himself somewhere

saith,

He that despised Moses' law dieth without mercy under two or three witnesses.

Seeing

therefore that the Law condemneth them that sin and

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decreeth sometimes the uttermost punishment to them that disregard it, and in no wise

pitieth, how was not the manifestation to them on the earth of a Compassionate and truly Merciful High Priest necessary? of One Who should make the curse to cease, should stop the condemnation and free sinners with forgiving grace and with the bending

of clemency? for I (He says)

am He that blotteth out thy transgressions and will not remember.

For we have been

justified by faith

and

not out of the works of the Law,

as it is written. On Whom then believing are we justified? is it not on Him who suffered death for us after the flesh? is it not on One Lord Jesus Christ? have we not on declaring His Death and confessing His Resurrection been redeemed? If therefore we have believed on a man like us and not rather on God, the thing is man-worship, and confessedly nothing else: but if we believe that He That

suffered in the flesh

is God, Who hath been made also our High Priest, we have no ways erred, but acknowledge the Word out of God made Man: and thus is required of us faith God-ward, Who putteth out of condemnation and freeth from sin those that are taken thereby. For

the Son of man hath authority on the earth

also

to forgive sins,

as Himself too

saith. Contrasting therefore with the salvation and grace that is through Christ the harshness (so to speak) of the law's severity, we say that Christ was made

a Merciful

High Priest. For He was and is God Good by Nature and Compassionate and Merciful always, and hath not become this in time but was so manifested to us. And He has been named

Faithful,

as abiding what

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He is always, according to what is said of the Father Himself too,

But God is faithful Who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able.

A merciful and faithful High-Priest

therefore has Emmanuel been made unto us; for (as Paul

saith)

the one were many priests because they were by death hindered from remaining, He, because He continneth for ever, hath a priest-hood that passeth not, wherefore He is able to save also unto the uttermost them that come unto God through Him, ever living to intercede for them.

That the Word out of the Father hath remained God, albeit made priest, as it is written, on account of the fashion and mode that befitteth the Economy with flesh, the word of the blessed Paul hath been sufficient unto our full assurance, for he said again,

Now of the things which have been said

this is

the sum, We have such an High Priest, Who sat at the Right Hand of the Throne of the Majesty in the heavens, a Minister of the sanctuary and of the Very Tabernacle which the Lord pitched and not man.

Yiew therefore view the Word Which sprang of God illustrious as God in supremest excellencies and in the Seat of Godhead, and the Same executing the Priest's Office as man and offering to the Father no sacrifice of earth but Divine rather and spiritual and how He has Heaven as His Holy Tabernacle. For

not after the law of a carnal commandment

has He been

made

High Priest,

but after the power of an indissoluble life,

as it is written.

Faithful

therefore is He in this too, and sure to them who come to Him, that He is able full easily to save them quite, for with His own Blood and with

One Offering hath He perfected for ever them that are sanctified.

For this I deem doth the holy Paul shew us saying,

for in that He Himself hath suffered, being tempted, He is able to succour them that are tempted.

Why then unrecking of thoughts which pertain unto piety and straying from words of rightness and truth, does he say, "He That suffered is a Merciful High Priest,

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Passible the Temple, not the Life-giving God of Him Who suffered?"

That the Word of God then hath of His own Will suffered in the flesh for our sakes, shall be shewn in its own time: but that he is severing the Inseverable and setting forth two christs by the effect of his ideas, even though he clearly say One Christ, he shall be no less convicted through what has been forthwith subjoined, for he said again,

"Abraham's seed is He Who was

yesterday and to-day,

according to the voice of Paul, not He Who saith,

Before Abraham was,

I

am. Like to His brethren in all things,

He Who assumed brotherhood of human soul and body, not He Who saith,

He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father,

He was sent Who is consubstantial with us and has been

anointed to preach remission to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind,

for

the Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, wherefore He anointed Me."

§3. Thou

severest

therefore into two again and that patently, then how art thou not convicted of being

sensual

and

having not the Spirit,

as saith the disciple of the Saviour? but the might of the Truth will array itself (o man) against thy words. For we affirm that the Word Himself out of God the Father took hold

of Abraham's seed,

and made His own body having a reasonable soul the body which was assumed of the holy Virgin. And verily by true union do we say that One and the Same is He Who was

yesterday

and

to-day and for ever,

and Who

before Abraham

Divinely, was made man after and underwent birth of a woman. Hence He will not lie in saying,

Verily I say unto you, Before Abraham was

I

am.

But he does not the least understand what

yesterday

and

to-day and for ever

is. For that he may shew that the Word of God is Eternal and that by Nature and superior to change and turn, even though He have been made Man, he parted the whole of time into three periods, and puts

yesterday

of past time,

to-day

of the present, and

for ever

of the future. But this boorish man against reason [says] that

yesterday and to-day

are spoken by him of a

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common man, not considering that it will full surely shew Him to have been older and pre-existent to His own Birth, if He were at all of

yesterday,

which is indicative of time past. That not one is He that is

yesterday and to-day,

Jesus Christ, another He Who

saith,

before Abraham was

I

am,

but One and the Same by a true Union, the Word having been made Man as we and having preserved to His own Nature, even when He was made man, the being without beginning in time, one may see and that without trouble, in the God-inspired Scripture. For as the blessed Evangelist John saith of Christ the Saviour of us all,

John beareth witness

of Him and hath cried saying, He That cometh after me has been made before me, for He was before me,

and again,

The next day he looketh at Jesus coming unto him and saith, Behold the Lamb of God Which taketh away the sin of the world, This is He of Whom

I

said, After me cometh a Man Which has been made before me, for He was before me.

Thou seest then and that very clearly the Divine-uttering Baptist calling Jesus

a Man

and

coming after,

as being late-born and after him, yet preceding him and pre-existing, for this, I deem, the words, for

He was before me

and

has been made before me,

mean. How then if He is a Man, is

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He conceived of as pre-existing and is said to be before: him who had the start of Him in time and had his birth in the flesh older than His? For if this were said of a man like us, every body would (I suppose) be at a loss to defend it, but in regard to Christ the Saviour of us all, there is no difficulty. For He Who is out of God makes His own the birth of His own flesh, yet is He not ignorant that He is Maker of the worlds and hath pre-existence as God, and is Co-eternal with His own Father. For we do not say that He hath His Being contemporaneous with the birth of His own body, but was (as I said) ineffably begotten of the Essence of God the Father. Therefore having His Being before Abraham as God even though He was made Man, He will not speak falsely in saying, as One in truth both Son and Lord,

Before Abraham was

I

am.

And marvel not if He hath apportioned to His own Nature the being

before Abraham,

but consider rather that albeit He had taken a body of the holy Virgin, He said to

Nicodemus,

If I have told you earthly things and ye believe not, how shall ye believe if I tell you heavenly things? and no man hath ascended up into heaven but He That came down from Heaven, the Son of Man,

albeit He was called

son of

man

too, born of a woman after the flesh. Will He then be false in saying that there hath come down from Heaven the son of man,

i. e., Himself? Not so, for He is Himself the Truth. How then will the son of man be rightly conceived of as from above? because the Word being God and out of the Essence That is above all, is said to have come down and to have taken the servant's form. Therefore He converseth with us, not as any longer bare Word, but man as we, and as already conceived of as One with the Flesh united to Him. And as by reason of what beseemeth the emptiness, He maketh His own all that belongs to His own Flesh, albeit by Nature

unembodied; so Himself being from above and out of Heaven, He allotteth again the coming from above to Himself even when He hath been made Man, even though He hath been born according to the flesh with us of a woman. The properties therefore of the human

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nature have become the very own of the Word, those again of the Word Himself, the very own of the human nature: for thus is conceived of One Christ and Son and Lord.

But since this innovator has added that "

like to His brethren in all things

is He Who assumed brotherhood of human soul and flesh, not He Who

saith,

He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father

," come now let us again consider as we can what it is which he here

saith. For that the Son is the Image and Impress of God the Father, he too hath confessed: who again "He is Who of human soul and body assumed brotherhood,"

i. e., with us, let him come forward and teach; for no one would say that a man like us, such as (for example) Barnabas or Paul or any other of those who are reckoned among men, would be said to take brotherhood of human soul and body, as though he were ought else than this, and so took it, but he is so rather in being what he is. Not one therefore who is man could be conceived as taking the being what he is, as though it were other than he: but it will beseem rather the Word which sprang forth of God, having no rank among us in regard to the count of His own Nature, to take "brotherhood of human soul and body" with us. And the word of the truth contends on our side and the tradition of the undefiled Faith. It holds then that God the Word in the Form of God the Father has been made our Brother in all things, taking "brotherhood of human soul and body," and will not speak falsely in saying,

He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.

For if any among us had fallen into such unlearning in his ideas as to suppose that God the Father Himself Which is in Heaven must needs come down, even to the having likeness with us (I mean bodily); he might well have feared lest that when Christ says,

He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father,

he might be imagining that He too out of Whom He is, was in form as we, and in fashion of body. But since when He was made man, He preserved the being God, and holdeth the Beauty of His own Nature untarnished, I would no wise shrink from saying that He possesseth likeness with

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us, in respect of His being man as we, Who is of soul and body, albeit God by Nature and Impress of the Person of Him Who hath begotten Him. One therefore and the Same is He, like to His brethren after the flesh, yet shewing in His own Nature Him too Who begat Him, in regard I say to His being God.

But this man doth not understand this (whence should he?) but adulterating (so to speak) the plan of the mystery which is right and unalloyed, he introduces to us one and another

christ, and caught in Jewish accusals, perceives not where he is nor in what reach of ills he hath come. For they of the blood of Israel heard God crying aloud through one of the holy Prophets respecting Emmanuel,

And

THOU

Bethlehem house of Ephratha, little art thou to be among the thousands of Judah; out of thee shall He come to Me to be ruler in Israel, and His goings forth from the beginning from the days of eternity:

and again,

His generation who shall tell? because His life is raised from the earth.

And they, no wise understanding the mystery nor yet knowing that albeit God by Nature and having the origin of His Being Invisible and Incomprehensible, He was called Bethlehemite as being there born after the flesh out of the root of Jesse and David, said one to another,

Is not this He Whom they seek to hill? lo, He speaketh boldly and they say nothing unto Him;

do the rulers know that This Man is the Christ? Yet we know this Man whence He is, but Christ when He cometh, no man knoweth whence He is.

For they heard (as I said) the Prophet saying plainly,

His generation who shall tell?

and that He hath

His goings forth

or His Being before every age. View again (I pray) the vastness of Jewish stupor: for on saying

The Christ when He cometh, no one knoweth whence He is,

they said again one to another,

Of a truth this is the Prophet: others

(it says)

said, Shall Christ come out of Galilee? said not the Scripture that out of the seed of David and from Bethlehem the village where was David, the Christ cometh?

Seest thou how they stagger, confessing both His being apart from beginning, Divinely, and His fleshly Generation in time?

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But they would not have been carried away into

mis-counsel thus extravagant, if they had known truly that the Word being God, proceeded Man out of the root of Jesse and David and of the holy Virgin, and that the Lord of earth and Heaven and of all was called a Bethlehemite too, for He shared poverty with us

being Rich,

as it is written.

Why therefore plunging thee in the sleights of the Jews dost thou both deem and say what it is neither lawful to say nor yet harmless to conceive of? confess with us One Christ, and do not severing into two again say this, "He was sent that is consubstantial with us and has been

anointed to preach remission to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind.

Whither then will go the word of the divines, who have been initiators of all under Heaven? for they have cried aloud that the very Word out of God the Father, was made Saviour and Redeemer of all, not as though a man other than He were mediating, like as Moses, but rather as come down to us in bodily likeness and form, for thus has He been anointed as High Priest and Apostle. And indeed He rebuked the Jews saying,

Is it not written

in your Law,

I

said, Ye are gods? if he called them gods to whom the word of God came and the scripture cannot be broken: Him Whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, do

YE

say

[to Him],

thou blasphemest, because I

said, I am the Son of God?

why (I pray) shall we put Him Who abased Himself unto emptiness that He might save all under Heaven, forth of the most God-befitting and truly admirable achievements that have been wrought unto us-ward, by saying that there has been sent some other than He consubstantial with ourselves? albeit how were it not better to say and thus to chuse to think, that He has been both sent and hath been made consubstantial with us,

i. e., man: yet abiding Consubstantial with God the Father Himself too, as He is both conceived of and was and is God? for He is, He is what He was, even when He assumed the humanity, and having sameness of Essence with God the Father Which is in Heaven, He grasped in

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wisdom the likeness with us too; as Mediator too has He been set forth, combining through Himself unto an union of relation things completely dissevered one from another as to the plan of their nature. For He being God by Nature has been made man in truth, that we too might be called

offspring,

no more of the first, that is, of the earthy, to whom it was said by God,

Earth thou art and unto earth shalt thou return,

who conducteth even unto death, but of the second, from above and out of Heaven, Christ I mean Who bringeth us again unto purest life, and rendereth incorrupt that which is holden of death and freeth from sins that which was enfolden by the toils of sin. Thus saith somewhere the Father Himself to the Son,

Behold I have

given Thee for a Covenant of the race for a Light of the

Gentiles, to open the eyes of the blind, to bring forth of chains the bound and of the prison-house them that sat in darkness;

and again by the voice of Isaiah,

The beasts of the field shall honour Me, the Sirens and the daughters of the ostriches, because I gave water in the wilderness and rivers in the thirsty land to give drink to Mine offspring, chosen, My people whom I won for Myself, to declare My Virtues.

The which understanding very well of those of the Gentiles called through faith unto true knowledge of God, the Divine-uttering Peter writeth and

saith,

But

YE are

a chosen race, a royal

priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people, that ye should tell out the Virtues of Him Who calleth you out of darkness into His wondrous light, of old not a people, but now a people.

But if as seems good to thee to think and say, "he was sent who is consubstantial with us," no longer with the Father, in no wise have WE been made partakers of the

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Divine Nature, but have abode as I said, and are yet offspring of the first, of him who conducteth unto curse and death and under penalty of sin. We have therefore been deceived

and are no less now too in that case wherein we were of old and before the Advent. How then did

old things pass away and lo they have become new?

and where is,

If any

in Christ,

he is

a new creature?

But are you ashamed to confess the Word of God God made man as we? do you therefore chide Him and say that He hath planned no wise matter when He emptied Himself for our sakes? Therefore thou shalt hear Him say,

Get thee behind Me Satan, thou art an offence unto Me, for thou savourest not the things that be of God but those of men.

Search with us the God-inspired Scripture; He appeared of old to the Patriarch Jacob too when he was departing from Laban's hearth, and was at the very fords of

Jabok, as it is written: for

Jacob was left alone and there was wrestling a man with him until morning,

and he knows

that he prevaileth not against him and he touched the flat of his thigh and the flat of Jacob's thigh stiffened in his wrestling with him; and he said to him, Dismiss me for the dawn hath gone up, and he said, I will not dismiss Thee except Thou bless me.

And after other again,

And Jacob called the name of that place, The Form of God, for I saw God Face to face and my life was preserved; and the sun rose upon him when he passed by the Form of God.

Understand therefore how not as incorporeal and impalpable Word did He deign to shew Himself then to the Patriarch, foreshewing to him the type of the mystery, but He Who wrestled and consumed the whole night thereupon was a man. But when the day was dawning and it was morning, He says,

Dismiss Me,

which was clearly the word of one who was bringing to an end the

wrestling.

And what is the plan of the mystery, it is necessary to say. With them who abide as it were in night and

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darkness, and have a spiritual mist o'er mind and heart and I cannot yet understand the mystery Him-ward, He useth to wrestle and fight and overcome; but with them who are

now in light and so to speak in spiritual morning and have good understanding of the Mystery, He thinketh not good any longer to wrestle, but dispenseth to them instead spiritual blessings. Hence if even at length and hardly you should enter in yourself too into the light and so to speak into the morning, He Who conquereth all would cease fighting with you. And see how whereas it was a man who wrestled, the Divine-uttering Jacob says that he had seen God Face to face: and the sacred Scripture added that

the sun arose upon him when he passed by the Form of God.

Why therefore (I pray) are you ashamed at the measures of the emptiness, albeit every one (I suppose) who both holds the right faith and examines accurately the aim of the God-inspired Scripture says that the Word out of God the Father was both Incarnate and made Man? He therefore Who is consubstantial with us, in that He has been made Man, and to the Father Himself, in that He hath remained God even in human nature, was sent preaching

remission to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, and to heal the broken in heart,

and to call

the acceptable year of the Lord:

for His Alone and of none other are the deeds which have been wrought us, and one of the holy Prophets shall be our pledge, thus saying,

No ambassador, no angel,

but the Lord Himself saved us,

who also most clearly saith to us,

Therefore My people shall know My Name in that

day, I Who speak am present.

Albeit if he who has been sent were some mere man, how would Himself be conceived of as having spoken the Law which was long ago given to them of old? for not at all proceeding as man, would He be said to have been made man, lest He should be seen to have an existence elder to His coming into being: but preexisting as God, He hath spoken indeed the Law, but says that He is

present

in some strange and unwonted way when He has been made Man.

"But yes (says he) the Word being God fulfils all things:

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how then was He also sent, for where was He not Who fulfils all things?" what (tell me) shall we admit that the Divine and Consubstantial Trinity has been contracted rather than that it is spread over all and fulfils all things? Then how hath the great Moses, when some of them of old were building the Heaven-reaching tower, introduced God saying,

Come let us go down and there confound their tongues?

what descent needed the Nature That fills both Heaven and earth? it is written of the Holy Ghost too,

The Spirit of the Lord hath filled the earth;

the blessed David sings and says of them that lie in the earth to God Who is mighty to quicken,

Thou shalt send forth Thy Spirit and they shall be created and Thou shalt renew the face of the earth.

How is That sent forth which filleth all things? Do not therefore (putting forward as something clever and hard to be overturned, that He Who is mighty to fulfil all things, the Word out of God the Father, has His mission an impossibility) hasten to undo the truth and to overturn the power of the Mystery; but consider rather that He speaketh in human wise of the things that belong to God and they are conceived of by us in such sort as both Himself Alone may know, and as He is wont to act.

But since as little and human and in boundless degree below the dignity of the Only Begotten He receives the unction, come let us say what is reasonable upon this point too, undoing occasions of offence. If therefore He have not been made Man, let Him shake off things human, let Him repudiate the Economy as putting Him in inferior position and setting Him behind the Supreme Glory and God-befitting Excellence; for petty to the Word is what is ours. But since the Mystery is of a truth wise and the fact of the emptying not to be rejected by Him, why dost

thou foolhardily find fault with things that are right? and turn away as uncomely what is crowned with His

Approval? didst thou see Him anointed humanly? behold

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the same also anointing Divinely

: for it is written that

John too bare record saying, I saw the Spirit descending like a dove and abiding upon Him and

I

knew Him not, but He That sent me to baptize with water, He said unto me, Upon Whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending and remaining on Him, This is He which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost, and I have seen and borne record that This is the Son of God,

For dost thou say that it is the work of the human nature to have power to baptize with the Holy Ghost them that believe? albeit how were it not folly to think that this were so? for how would the less bestow the participation of that which is immeasurably superior? And observe that this very person upon Whom the Spirit is said to soar down and to remain upon Him, baptizeth with the Holy Ghost, anointing (it is plain) as God with His own Spirit them that believe. And verily He rose from the dead, and

breathed on

His disciples, saying,

Receive ye the Holy Ghost.

And they receiving, say, WE

received not the spirit of the world but the Spirit Which is out of God, that we might know the things that were freely given to us of God.

The most wise Paul too writes,

They that are in the flesh cannot please God, but

YE

are not in the flesh but in the spirit if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you: if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, this man is not His.

And elsewhere too,

For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God.

Therefore when thou seest Him anointed with His own Spirit, remember the economy with flesh and take count of the human nature: when thou seest Him give the Spirit, with this marvel at God in human nature too.

But taking no account of these things this contentious man says again thus:

"This

is he who was made a faithful High Priest to God,

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for he was made so, he was not so from eternity, this, heretic, is he who by little and little advanced unto the dignity of the high priesthood. Hear a clearer voice calling out to thee,

Who in the days

(it says)

of His Flesh, when He offered up prayers and supplications with mighty cry and tears unto Him That was able to save Him from death and was heard for His Piety, though He were Son, He learned obedience by the things He suffered and, made perfect, became unto them that obey Him the Author of indissoluble salvation.

That is perfected which advances by little and little, heretic. Respecting which John too cries out in the Gospels,

Jesus was advancing in stature and wisdom and grace,

conformably to which things Paul too speaking says,

Made perfect He became unto all them that obey Him the Author of eternal salvation, called of God an High Priest after the order of Melchisedelc,

this is he who is compared with Moses in regard to generalship, that is called seed of Abraham, that is like in all things to his brethren, that was made High Priest in time, that was perfected through sufferings, that

in that he suffered beting tempted is able to succour them that are tempted,

that is

called an High Priest after the order of Melchisedek.

Why then interpret contrary to Paul, commingling the Impassible God the Word with earthly body and making Him a passible High Priest?"

§4. Most vigorous onslaught, my friend, and truly spirited hast thou made upon the doctrines of piety. And the Divine-uttering Baruch, pointing out the Word of God already Incarnate and seen in likeness to us, says,

This is our God, there shall none other be accounted of in comparison of Him, He found out all the way of knowledge and gave it to Jacob His servant and to Israel His beloved: afterward did He shew Himself upon earth and conversed with men.

But THOU calling out and that full often, This, yea all but putting forth thine hand;----who is it that you manifest to believers and cause to be seen of them, yea, and say that he

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advanced by little and little unto High Priesthood? I suppose it is surely he of whom but now specifying thou

saidst, "Therefore a Merciful High Priest is he that suffered, not the quickening God of him that suffered: the seed of Abraham he who is

yesterday and to-day,

as Paul

saith,

not he who saith,

Before Abraham was

I

am; like to his brethren in all things

he that assumed brotherhood of human soul and flesh, not He Who

saith,

He that hath seen Me, hath seen the Father

And that in affirming that the Life-giving Word of God is God of him who suffered, involving yourself in the charge of inevitable blasphemy, you have done no slight wrong, sufficient reasoning made

clear to us. But I marvel that thyself oblivious of thine own words, thou deemest right to say alike and think that He by little and little advanced unto the dignity of the High Priest, Whom thou sayest is even God Almighty. For the Epistle written to the Hebrews being before thee, thou art caught saying, "Yet is This man Who after the flesh is akin to Israel, Who in that which is visible is Man, Who according to Paul's speech was made

out of the seed of David,

by connection God Almighty." How did He yet advance, according to that idle talk, to the dignity of High Priest albeit testified by thy voice too as Almighty God?

And though you utter the ill-famed

connection and invented I know not whence by yourself alone, I will pass it over for the present: but I will ask, bidding the argument advance straight on its own befitting and proper course, Does not that which advances unto Priesthood and glory make its advance or progress unto the better and more excellent? and how will not every one whatever give his vote for the truth of this? Greater therefore than the being Almighty God, is the High Priesthood. Then how does he whose lot is the Priesthood minister too and stand as a worshipper by God, and as a servant by his master, offering what is customable and bringing sacrifices, and He Who is crowned with the Supreme glory receives the sacrifices and is honoured by the service?

But thou sayest (I suppose) this, Being God Almighty the

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Same hath become High-Priest. He hath been emptied

therefore and hath abased Himself by descent into the inferior. How therefore did He yet advance unto dignity when made an High Priest? Remember again thine own words, for thus thou saidst a little above, "If the Godhead be High Priest, who is He who is served by the ministry of the High Priesthood? if He Who offereth be God, there is none to whom the offering is made, for what is there worthy of Godhead that as inferior It should make offering to a greater?" Stand now at least to your own words; but this you cannot do, for you will be

borne about

(so to say)

by every wind,

and perceive not that you are being driven about, one while springing off from those into these, other while again from these into those, and in no wise are you afraid of what Paul

saith,

For if what I destroyed this I build again, I make myself a transgressor.

But you will perhaps say, Affirming that the Word out of God the Father is everywhere One Christ and Son and Lord, with His own Flesh, how sayest thou now that He has been set forth as an High Priest and Apostle? dost thou not in so saying insult the Supreme Dignity of His Divine Glory?

Because, good Sir, (shall I say) the Only Begotten Word of God has been made man and in the measures of the human nature, the fact of Priesthood will not unbefit Him, and moreover the saying that He has been sent, for He

despised the shame,

as the Divine-uttering Paul writes, and

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endured yet lower and worser things for our sakes: for He

gave

His

bach to the scourges,

His

Face

turned not

away from the shame of spittings,

and endurant He bore the contumelies of the Jews. But thou deemest not meet to call Him Priest, as being God? admit the words pertaining to the Economy, consider the emptying, the descent unto the servant's form. For we say not that the Word of God advanced and hastened unto dignity, if He have been styled our High Priest, but rather that He descended herein too unto emptiness. Since how has He been emptied and is He said to have been abased, albeit He possesseth unchangeableness and is in Form and Equality in everything with His Father? how too advanced He by little and little and this (as thyself

sayest) unto the dignity of the High Priesthood? what sort of growth received He hereunto? If then it were a bodily one, I will ask again, Doth bodily growth lead up to the glory of the Priesthood: be then this common [to all] and let this method of reasoning of yours belong to every one who advanceth bodily, But of a truth the Priesthood beseemeth not all those who customably advance unto bodily growth; how therefore blushest thou not in putting forth unto us for demonstration of those things which thou

saidst, what was spoken by the Divine-uttering Luke,

But Jesus was advancing in

stature and wisdom and grace?

But thou sayest that the growth was unto wisdom, albeit how is not this without learning? for we believe that out of the very belly and womb of the Virgin, Emmanuel being God proceeded forth Man, full surely of the wisdom and grace that are inherent of Nature. What sort of growth then will He admit of,

in Whom are all the treasures of wisdom,

Who is with God the Father Co-giver of the grace from above? how then is He said to advance? it is, I deem, by God the Word co-measuring with the increase and stature of His own Body, the manifestation of the most God-befitting goods that are in Him. For let us consider that although He has been made Man as we, He was zealous to lie hid at the first, and administered by little

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and little as it were noiselessly and in silence the might of the Mystery; and of this God the Father Himself will be our assurance saying,

Jacob My Servant, I will defend Him, Israel My chosen, My Soul received Him, I gave My Spirit upon Him, He shall bring forth judgement to the Gentiles: He shall not cry nor lift up, nor shall His voice be heard without: a bruised reed. He shall not break and smoking flax He shall not quench.

And He was somewhere rebuking the holy Apostles themselves

that they should not make Him,

known.

Hence a thing unwonted and strange and worthy of looking into, would have been

shewn, if being yet a babe, He had made a God-befitting demonstration of wisdom: but He little and little and proportionably to bodily stature, extending it and making it manifest to all, will be said to advance and that with reason.

How therefore

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did He advance by little and little unto the Priesthood, tell me, by being perfected in virtue? Then how or whence may one doubt that that which faileth of perfection in virtue, will be under blame, and not wholly an object of admiration, yea rather haply under charge of sin? But it is indeed true that He hath done

no sin neither was guile found in His Mouth,

as it is written. Full-perfect therefore is He being such unto every thing, and in no wise will He have the lack of being complete unto the achievement of virtue. And when was He That was God in the womb too not Perfect unto good, of Whom the Prophet

Isaiah too saith,

Butter and honey shall He eat, before He have knowledge to prefer evil, He shall choose the good, because before the Child shall know good or ill, He shall disobey vice to choose the good?

where then will you be able

to demonstrate Christ's yet imperfectness unto good? or what advance will He need who is so Perfect as to disobey vice and to prefer to it, yea only choose, good?

Yet I know not how he who affirmeth and saith "This is he who by little and little advanced to the dignity of the high priesthood," and who brought forward in proof of his words,

Jesus advanced in stature and wisdom and grace,

all but marking out the uncomeliness of his own words and gliding into forgetfulness of the things of which he assumed were right, affirms to us that the mode of perfection was wrought in another way, saying, "This is he who in time has been made High Priest, who was perfected through sufferings." Is not this manifest distraction? yea rather a proof of utter recklessness? for our Lord Jesus Christ has been made perfect through sufferings, but this man albeit he was not ignorant of the mode of being made perfect, carries away the minds of the simpler unto certain strange perversions

of ideas and says that He advanced unto being High Priest and has been perfected unto this, "Who is said to have been emptied because this took place. And as though he had full clearly shewn that neither was the Word of God made flesh, nor yet proceeded Man out of woman, he chides those who have

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chosen thus to hold and says, "Why therefore doth thou

mis-interpret Paul, commingling with earthly body the Impassive God the Word and making Him a passible High Priest?" Hear therefore from us too, to whom rather the truth is dear, Why dost thou

mis-interpret Paul, yea rather slanderest the whole God-inspired Scripture, withdrawing the Word of God from the economy with flesh, and settest over us as priest a man honoured with mere connection? albeit thou hearest that the Same is at once High Priest and

Co-Throned with God the Father, as we have already said. For Paul said,

We have such an High Priest, Who sat on the Right Hand of the Throne of the Majesty in the heavens.

For that the Word out of God the Father is Impassible, is I suppose clear to every one: that He

hath suffered for

in the flesh,

the voice of inspired men will seal up for a truth. But if thyself bear away the Word out of God from earthly body, the whole will come to nothing. For if He have not been made Man, neither did He die for us, and if He have not given unto death His own Body, how is He said to be

the first begotten from the dead?

Hence Christ neither died nor revived. Let the Divine-uttering Paul therefore come forward, let him cry aloud saying,

If the dead are not raised, neither has been Christ raised, if Christ have not been raised, vain

your faith, ye are yet in your sins: they also which fell asleep in Christ perished.

But Christ has been raised from the dead, for the Only-Begotten Word of God has been made Man and, taking an earthly body and uniting it Personally to Him,

by the grace of God,

as it is written,

tasted death for every man.

He has been named

first-fruits of them that slept,

having been raised from the dead. Sure therefore and not vain is now our faith,

which we have as an anchor of the soul both sure and stedfast,

as it is written.

And he, as though he had in no wise wronged the plan of the economy with flesh, through saying such things and pouring forth untempered and foulest vomit upon the doctrines of the truth, proceeds to another

mis-counsel, yea rather manifest blasphemy and says,

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"This man alone

therefore being our High Priest, feeling and kin and sure, turn ye not away from the faith Him-ward; for He was sent, the blessing which was proraised us out of the seed of Abraham, as offering the sacrifice of His Body for Himself alike and His race."

§5. Thou sayest that a High Priest both kin to us and feeling and sure and moreover only, is he whom thy discourse but now clearly taught us of. For thou

saidst, "The seed of Abraham is he who is

yesterday and to-day,

as Paul

saith, not He Who saith,

Before Abraham was

I

am; Like to His brethren in all things,

he who assumed brother-hood of human soul and flesh, not He Who said,

He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father;

sent was he who is consubstantial with us and has been

anointed to preach remission unto the captives and recovery of sight to the blind.

This man therefore will be conceived of as of kin too to those on the earth, and not as THOU

sayest, He That saith,

He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.

For if gathering both into one according to true union thou with us confessest One Son, thou hast laboured in vain, in bearing away each separately and apart from other, severing into hypostases and persons, completely, not in the mere knowledge that the nature of flesh is other than the Divine Nature yet by concurrence unto true union hath become Its own: if on the other hand desiring to shew thyself irreconcileable in opinion with us and utterly repudiating the union, thou sayest that He is one and another, and that the One has been begotten out of God the Father, the other of kin and consubstantial with us; how (tell me) dost thou say that we ought not now to turn aside from faith to Him-ward? and we shall believe him to be our kin, letting go Him Who

saith,

Before Abraham was

I

am:

we shall take as our god him who assumed brotherhood with us of human soul and flesh, letting go Him Who

saith,

He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father,

albeit Himself saith,

For so God loved the world that He gave His Only-Begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have

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everlasting life,

and again,

He that believeth on Him is not condemned, but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the Name of the Only-Begotten Son of God.

Is he therefore who is forth of the seed of Abraham conceived of as Only-Begotten apart and by himself, albeit John hath clearly written,

The Only-Begotten Son which is in the Bosom of the Father, He declared Him,

and moreover another Holy Scripture,

But when He bringeth in the First-begotten into the world, He saith, And let all Angels of God worship Him?

But

First-born

wholly and surely will He be Who is

among many brethren,

not He Who is begotten Alone of the Alone God the Father: for thus far will we follow, sir, thy distinctions, keenly awaiting for the economy's sake, whither the words burst through upon us. Hence (for I will call back the argument to its commencement) "he that assumed brotherhood with us of human soul and flesh," yet was made out of the seed of Abraham, will be

the Firstborn among many brethren,

but He that is

in the Bosom of

God

the Father, the Only-Begotten God

the Word. Then when the God-inspired Scripture says that our faith must be had in the Only-Begotten Son of God, why dost thou, putting forward one kin and consubstantial with us, say that we ought not to turn away from faith in him-ward? It is therefore necessary to link together

in One Lord and Christ, by personal coalescence

that is, in order that the Same may be conceived of as Only-Begotten and First-Begotten in the Same, in that the Word out of God the Father being God by Nature has been made Man as we and out of the seed of Abraham.

But now something clever has been found out as he thinks by him and thus again says he:

"Remember by all means what I have full often said to you, refusing two-fold natures in our Lord Christ, two-fold in nature, single in dignity: for the sway of the natures is for the connection's sake, one, the natures abiding ever in their own order, but the dignity connected as I said before unto a single sway."

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§6. Yea apt at learning wert thou, who hast chosen to follow the God-inspired Scripture, which says One Lord Jesus Christ and does not put apart Him Who is out of the seed of Abraham and the Word out of God the Father. And besides one must consider this too: for one thing indeed is Godhead, another, manhood like ours, according to the inherent nature of things; but by coalescence unto true union, One Christ out of both, as we have full often said. But when the hypostases, as YOU say, have been severed into two and are conceived of as existing separately and apart, how will there be a coalescence in one Person, except one be conceived of as the property of the other: just as of a man's soul his body will be conceived of as the property, albeit of other nature than it, for not the same things are soul and body?

But (one may perchance say) how is the Holy and Adorable Trinity distinguished into Three Hypostases, yet issues in One Nature of Godhead? Because (I would say) the identity of Essence following of necessity upon the difference of ....

, carries up the mind of believers unto One Nature of Godhead: but in respect to Emmanuel, since Godhead is something other than manhood, unless we say that the Body of the Word became His own by true Union, how will One Person be effected, when either hypostasis, apart by itself, brings before us the property of both? And except the assumed have been made the own of the assumer, connection by concurrence simply in dignity alone and sway will not suffice to effect One Only Christ, the Same God Alike and Man. For then, then, in very sooth, [it will behove not

] to turn aside from the faith unto Himward, even though He be conceived of as out of the seed of Abraham after the flesh. But if you say that He is one and other and then affirm that our faith must be put in him that is out of the seed of Abraham, be well assured that you are

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pouring down upon your own head the charge of man-worship, albeit you repudiate and rightly the repute of being a man-worshipper.

Yea and thinking it too little to deem aright, he slanders in another way too the great Mystery of godliness. For he subjoins forthwith,

"For he was sent to us, the blessing being promised out of the seed of Abraham, offering the sacrifice of his body for himself alike and his race."

Was Christ then Himself too made under sin? He through whom sin's mouth against us is stopped, according to the Psalmist's voice? did the darkness of accursed crime touch the Very Light Himself? needed then with us He through Whom is all redemption and hope of salvation a redeemer and

Saviour? it will befit him (it seems) with us to offer thanksgiving, when God in His Clemency says, I

am He That blotteth out thy sins and I will not remember them

; him too even as we will the father of sin accuse. And then how will he not speak falsely saying,

The prince of this world cometh, and in Me he shall find nothing?

The presidents of the synagogue of the Jews once blasphemed against Him, for when they were worn out by the darts of envy, at seeing the blind from his birth in unwonted manner healed, they impiously said.

Give glory to God,

WE

know that this man is a sinner,

but our Lord Jesus Christ, convicting them of unbridled utterance said plainly,

Which of you convicteth Me of sin? and if I say the truth, why do

YE

not believe Me?

Hence, if He have offered sacrifice, both for us and moreover for Himself too, He surely hath needed it, even as we too who are under the yoke of sin: convict Him therefore of sin; if He hath offered sacrifice with us, shew Him co-sinner with us. Being the Good Shepherd, for whom hath He laid down His Life, for Himself rather or for the sheep? I hear Him saying

of us,

For their sakes do

I

sanctify Myself,

and as the Divine-speaking Paul

saith,

By the grace of God for every man tasted He death,

and again,

He was delivered up because of our transgressions and was raised because of our

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justification,

and as the Prophet Esaias

saith,

The chastisement of our peace was upon Him, with His stripes were

WE

healed,

not

Himself has been healed by the suffering of His own Flesh.

He was delivered up because of our transgressions

(not because of His own, far from it, for confessedly has the nature of man been borne down by the transgression in Adam unto curse and death, it is moreover sick of proneness to sin in the flesh), in order

that the righteousness of the Law might be fulfilled in its who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit.

For therefore was He also named

the last Adam,

not enduring to be sick of the things of the first one, but rather ridding in Himself first the nature of man from the blame of that ancient transgression. For it was condemned in Adam, but in Christ was seen most approved and worthy of wonder. Earthy therefore is he, but Christ heavenly. And it was put to shame in the first, borne down to disobedience which is sin, but in Christ hath it preserved

untransgression, and as in a second firstfruits of the race, was seen both unwounded by sins, and superior to curse and doom and death and decay. And the most wise Paul confirms us herein, thus writing,

For as through one

man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so too by its obedience of one shall the many be made righteous.

Every

one who has become guilty of sin needs therefore sacrifice for his own transgressions: and Christ hath offered Himself for His kin according to the flesh,

i. e., for us; but for Himself not a whit, being superior to sin, as God. For if He have been sacrificed for Himself, not WE alone have been bought by His Blood according to the Scriptures but Himself too will have been co-bought with us, no longer according to Isaiah's voice

did the Lord give Him up for our sins,

but He has been given rather for His own. For where is at all sacrifice and offering, there surely is also remission of sins. The Divine-uttering Paul therefore hath beguiled those throughout all under heaven by writing

regarding Him,

For such an High Priest became us, holy harmless undefiled, separated from sinners and made higher than the heavens, Who needeth not daily as the high priests to

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offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins then for the people's, for this He did once when He offered up Himself: for the Law maketh men high priests which have infirmity, but the word of the oath which was since the Law, the Son Who hath been perfected for evermore.

How therefore is Christ an

holy High Priest?

or in what way

harmless and undefiled?

And

if He need with us sacrifice, having made His offering for remission of transgressions and for justification of them that have sinned, how has He been

separated from sinners,

if He be justified along with them, the sacrifice having been offered for none else than these very persons? But I marvel that whereas Paul hath cried aloud and that full clearly that He is not like those who have been bidden to offer for their own transgressions, and then for the people's, thou wert not afraid to put forth the contrary to what he said, and durst say that after the likeness of them who were made priests according to the Law, He too offered up sacrifice for Himself. And if it be true that

the

Law maketh men High Priests which have infirmity, but the word of the oath which was since the Law, the Son Who hath been perfected for evermore,

why makest thou connumerate

with those who are used to infirmity Him Who has been removed from their multitude; and possesses the perfection which is above the Law, of His own and by Nature, if so be He be Son of a truth and therefore God?

But let us see from the legal and more ancient scripture too in what manner and for whom, Emmanuel hath offered Himself for an odour of a sweet smell unto God the Father. For a shadow confessedly was the Law, yet hath it the outline

of the mystery Christ-ward and travails with the form of the Truth. And indeed Christ said somewhere when

conversing with the Jews,

Had ye believed Moses ye would have believed Me, for of Me he wrote.

How therefore did

they of the blood of Israel when about to depart out of the Land of the Egyptians sacrifice the Lamb? for their own selves alone or for the Lamb's sake too? whom did it redeem by its blood? was it them who were under the

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yoke of bondage, and were enduring the oppression hard to bear of the Egyptians, or itself too? whose destroyer did it scare away? to whom said the God of all,

And I will

see the blood and will shelter you?

was it to those who needed His shelter or to the Lamb itself too?

For God the Father was representing the sacrifices that were to be made for sins, in the Law as on a tablet, outlining yet the mystery of Christ, and thus He said to

the hierophant Moses,

If the whole congregation of the children of Israel sin unwillingly and the thing be hid from the eyes of the assembly and they have done one of all the commandments of the Lord which should not be done, and have transgressed and the sin be known to them which they have sinned therein, the congregation shall offer a young bullock without blemish from among the herd for the sin.

And

having fully gone through how the details of the sacrifice should be done, He adds and says,

And the priest shall

make an atonement for them and the sin shall be forgiven them.

Observe then that the bullock was offered as a type of Christ the All-Pure and That hath no spot, and they who offer and not surely the bullock were set free from their guilt. For He has been sacrificed not rather for Himself, as THOU sayest, but for the infirm, for whom the high priest according to the Law used to make supplication, that you may again understand Him That was made an Advocate for us, a High Priest undefiled and

holy, separated from sinners.

Since therefore our opponent is on all sides sick of uncomeliness of speech, we say that the Word out of God the Father was made the High Priest and Apostle of our confession when He was made Man, abasing Himself unto emptiness and in our condition: in order that having offered Himself to the Father for an odour of sweet smell in behalf of all, He might win all under Heaven, might remove the ancient guilt, might justify by grace through faith, might render superior to death and decay, holy and hallowed

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and full well versed in every kind of virtue, confessing Him their Saviour and Redeemer, through Whom and with Whom to God the Father be glory with the Holy Ghost for evermore. Amen.

[A small selection of footnotes and marginalia, omitting

all biblical references, follows]

S. Cyril in his Thesaurus, written chiefly against, the error of those who tried to make it seem that the SON was less than the FATHER, had said (cap. 21. pp. 213 d e

214 a b), "Not setting forth the Nature of the Word, but the Economy with flesh, does the Apostle say this. For when has He been made

the High Priest of our confession?

when

Apostle? when faithful to Him who made Him?

was it not when for our sakes and in our behalf He was made man and, as

John says,

the Word was made flesh?

then became He faithful to

Him who made Him,

as man fulfilling His work, as Himself said : then was He made

Apostle,

sent in our behalf and for our sakes: then was He made

High Priest of our confession,

offering the Confession of our faith to the Father and presenting His own Body as a spotless sacrifice in order that He might cleanse all us through Him. If therefore it be said of the Son that He hath been made

faithful,

hath been made an

Apostle,

hath been made an

High Priest,

let not the expression be referred to His Being but to the quality of affairs. For Paul too being a man and existing already has been made an

Apostle

(not then beginning to be when he was called to the apostolate for existing previously, he was made an Apostle [these few words are supplied from the Munich MS. cited above p. 57

note y]): and Moses likewise has been made

faithful in all his house,

Aaron too has been made

High Priest,

outlining in himself too the

Saviour. For as Aaron was not born High Priest but became so many years after, when he put on the long garment and the ephod and the rest of the priestly raiment, which was women's work: just so as to Christ also. For He was

the Word in the beginning,

but long time after He became High Priest for us, taking on Him as some long robe the man out of woman, or the Temple, in order that by His own Blood He might cleanse the people, offering Himself to God as a spotless Lamb: for

He did not sin nor was guile found in His mouth.

This passage is given in full by Mercator p. 111 Bal. immediately after the foregoing, which had been

from the eighth quire:

a few words are also given before the council of Ephesus,

from the sixth quire,

p. 206 Bal.

"The sacred writers . . . acknowledged two senses of the word

faithful

in Scripture, first

believing,

then

trustworthy,

of which the former belongs to man, the latter to God. Thus Abraham was faithful because he believed God's word; and God faithful, for, as David says in the psalm,

The Lord is faithful in all His words,

or is trustworthy and cannot lie. Again,

If any faithful woman have widows,

she is so called from her right faith; but,

It is a faithful saying,

because what He hath spoken has a claim on our

faith, for it is true and is not otherwise. Accordingly the words,

who is faithful to Him That made Him,

implies no parallel with others, nor means that by having faith He became well-pleasing: but that, being Son of the True God, He too is faithful and ought to be believed in all He says and does, Himself remaining unalterable and not changed by His human economy and fleshly presence." S. Athanasius against the Arians ii. C. p. 289

O.T. " Faithful because Onely (...)

and lasting and trusty unto the faith of His Promises." S. Cyril de recta fide to the Empresses

Pulcheria and Eudocia, § 5, p. 135 d. "He is called faithful because He is able

to save

always

them who approach

through Him

to God, and the Father too has been called faithful." Ib. §18, p. 148 fin.

or,

reduced to emptiness, ...

cf.

(Jer. ii. 5). ...,

have

become vain,

have walked after empty gods and become themselves emptied out: so we too if our Mediator were but man, should have been reduced to utter emptiness.

See S.Ath. agst. Ar.i. §47.p.248

O.T. and note b.

Most of this is cited before the Council of Ephesus,

from the sixth quire,

p. 208 Bal. and in the

concilia. A few words are added at the beginning, " Since he was saying of Christ that He had been

sent to proclaim remission to the captives, as an Apostle he adds this too and says, This is he &c," as

Mercator,

or, from the sixth quire, speaking of Christ. "

That He was sent to preach remission to the captives. As the Apostle adds and says, This is he &c," as the Greek

Edd.

So too against the Arians who affirmed that the Son was exalted because man, S. Cyril, following S.

Athanasius, says, "And what accession of honour has there been to Him Who is in the form of God, yet has put on the servant's form? how will H e not rather with reason seem to have been minished Who left the greater and took up the less? Being God He hath been made man in order to find----what reward? or how was He glorified Who hath descended from glory to

dishonour? how hath He been made high Who disregarding the Dignity of Godhead came down even unto manhood? how hath He Who came down, been made above ? what advance hath abasement? what betterment He Who from what is better hath come into the inferior? If, God Most High,

and dwelling in high places, He is said to he exalted, whither (I pray) after the Nature of God will that yet mount up which is exalted? how was He low which is in the Bosom of the Most High Father? what accession did God need? if He have therefore come down in order to be exalted, what was the need of the coming down? if He therefore abased Himself in order to be exalted, what was the need of the abasement? how is not he unwise who seeks with toil what he could have without toil ? how received He

the Name which is above every name,

Who was ever worshipped in it?"

Thes. cap. 20 init. pp. 194,195, see S. Ath. against Ar. i. § 40. p. 237

O.T.

In S. Cyril's very famous 16th Paschal homily written at the beginning of previous year, A.D. 430, and cited by Andrew of Samosata in his objection to S. Cyril's fourth chapter and more fully by S. Cyril in his reply to that objection p. 172 e, he says, " And though thou hear that

Jesus was progressing in stature and wisdom and grace,

deem not that the Word of God became wise by accession but rather remember the Divine Paul writing on this wise,

Christ God's Power and God's Wisdom :

nor dare idly to say that we shall allot to the man the progress in

stature and wisdom and grace

(for this I ween is nought else than to sever into two the One Christ), but (as I said before) the Son being Eternal, is in the last times of the world said to have been

declared Son of

God

(Rom.

i. 4), Economically making His own the birth of His proper flesh : so too being the Wisdom of Him Who begat Him, He is said to progress in wisdom albeit All-Perfect as God, reasonably receiving into Himself the properties of the human nature on account of the completeness of the union

(

διὰ τὴν εἰς ἄκρον ἕνωσιν

)." Pasch.

Hom. p. 230 a b. Before this date S. Cyril had said, " And as for our sakes He abased Himself, so too for our sakes He admits

progress,

in order that WE again in Him might

advance in wisdom

who of old were made beasts by reason of sin, might

advance in favour

too, who of old have been hated because of the transgression in Adam. For all of ours for our sakes did Christ take into Himself that He might transform

all things unto the better and might become the beginning of every good to the race of man."

Thes. cap. 28 p. 251 a. In a treatise written at about the same date as the Books against

Nestorius, S. Cyril says, "For the mode and plan of the economy with flesh knows that He is both as we and above us; surpassing the measure of the creation as God, and (so to speak) inferior to Himself in that He is man. For where is the abasement which He voluntarily underwent, if He refuse what is human? Yet not in these is the nature of the Word conceived to lie, but He rather makes them His own together with His own flesh, just as He does hunger and thirst and the being said to be

wearied with the journey.

When then thou

hearest,

The little one waxed and was strengthened, filled with wisdom,

admit in reply the mystery of the economy with flesh. For that He was God in flesh, the blessed Evangelist will himself assure, saying,

the grace of God was on it.

For not as though He had grace from another God is He said to have

the grace of God,

but because the little one had grace which beseems God. For the Word was and is God even when He is seen in flesh, i.e. man like us. And if He be said to have

grace

or to

advance in favour (grace) with both. God and men,

it is not a whit incongruous, if even the Father Himself accepted the economy and the Son making His own what pertains to flesh because of what alike befits the mystery and is serviceable." de recta fide to the Empresses § 10 p. 139 b c d.

cited before council of Ephesus,

from seventh quire,

p. 209, Bal. &c.

10.

The text here gives

φύσεων

natures,

in the MS. another hand has written over,

ὑποστάσεων

. The Roman Editors conjecture,

προσώπων ἢ ὑποστάσεων

Persons

Hypostases:

but see Dr. Newman's S. Athanasius against Arians p.

155 O.T. note f.

11.

I have supplied these words from the expression used by S. Cyril at the beginning of this section. There seems to be an ellipse in the MS.

This text was transcribed by Roger Pearse, 2005. All material on this page is in the public domain - copy freely.

Greek text is rendered using

unicode

Early Church Fathers - Additional Texts

Cyril of Alexandria, Five Tomes Against Nestorius. LFC 47 (1881)

Book 4. pp.125-154.

TOME IV.

[Translated by P.E. P

USEY

]

Brazen serpent a type: how to be cured of the stings. In HOLY TRINITY Each Person exists yet each work is the work of the Whole TRINITY. Meaning of "Made flesh." Christ gives the SPIRIT as His own, and works as God through His own SPIRIT. Nicene Fathers spake through the HOLY GHOST. "Commended." The HOLY GHOST Spirit of the Truth, i. e., of CHRIST. All Divine Work work of Whole TRINITY. HOLY GHOST out of the FATHER and the Own of the SON. S. (John xvii. 1). Flesh of CHRIST quickens in the Eucharist, because it is the flesh of the WORD. Its type the Lamb, its mode a mystery. Nestorius confessed that Godhead and manhood belong to the Same, and contradicts himself: yet the Eucharist does quicken us: and He is Man having remained GOD. No one taught confusion of Person in Christ.

The Divine-uttering Paul, shewing that not ineffective for the profit of those who have elected to live piously, is the shadow in the Law and besides full well setting before the minds of all, as a picture and representation of the truer, the things which long ago befell them of old, says,

But these things happened unto them typically, but were written for our admonition unto whom the ends of the world

are come.

Come now therefore selecting out of the writings of the Law let us say, that they of Israel were camping in the desert of old time when they departed out of the land of the Egyptians and were speeding unto the Land of Promise: but when (wretched ones!) unmindful of the wonders in Egypt and of their love to

Godward, they began unholily to murmur, they

were destroyed of serpents,

as it is written. Yet they escaped the bites of the venomous creatures, Moses having reared up for them the brazen Serpent, God the Saviour of all having commanded,

Make thee

a serpent and set it for a sign and it shall be, if a serpent have bitten a man, that every one that is bitten, seeing it

shall live.

The figure then was the mystery Christ-ward, for the Only-Begotten Word of God being God, and Good

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by Nature out of a Good Father, partook of flesh and blood,

i. e., was made man, and like unto us wicked ones, in regard I mean that He is man as we. And He has been set up on high too, that is, He endured the cross on the wood and death after the flesh, even though He rose again the third day having trampled on the might of death.

When therefore of exceeding great lack of understanding murmuring against the economy with flesh and charging it with uncomeliness, we are ashamed to think or say that the Word of God became Man as we and was united to flesh in verity, then will the dragon, the prince of evil, slay us, infusing into our minds error, as it were the venom of his own perverseness: yet shall we escape and repel the damage of his crookedness, if with the eyes of our heart we look on the serpent, that is, if we consider with accurate mind the mystery of Christ. For then, then, deeming right shall we confess unhesitatingly that the Word of God has been made flesh, and proceeded forth of a woman along with remaining God, and is the Same God alike and Man, neither shaming of the measures of the human nature by reason of the Dignity of the Excellence, nor yet reft of His God-befitting Authority and Supreme Glory on account of the human nature. And they who are used full well to discern such things, clearly and by accurate scrutiny understanding through both the one, and the Mystery regarding Him, say,

O the depth of the

riches and wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable His judgements and His ways not to be tracked; for who knew the mind of the Lord?

Yet doth somehow this man thrusting away these things as impossible and uncomely, dare to make no small accusal against the glory and excellence of our

Saviour, and allotting to Him our measure and nought else, says that He has been glorified by the Holy Ghost, not using as His own Power, that through Him to work signs, but gaining from without and introduced, the power of achieving ought

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miraculous, that He may appear as we the recipient of a gift haply of healing, and be bound to say with blessed Paul,

By the Grace of God I am what I am.

For to whom being and being able to achieve ought is imported and from without, these will with reason utter such word as this.

For he desiring (as he thinks) to prove the Holy Trinity equal in operation unto all things, says again thus;

God the Word was made Flesh and tabernacled in us.

The Father co-seated with Himself the manhood which was assumed: for (it saith)

The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit Thou on My Right Hand;

the Spirit descending consummated the glory of that which was assumed, for

when

(He saith)

the Spirit of Truth is come, He shall glorify Me.

Desirest thou also another operation of the Trinity in respect of these very things? The Son indwelt in the body, the Father commended Him when baptized, the Spirit fashioned him in the Virgin." Then again he says of the holy Apostles, "The Son chose them out, for I (He says)

chose you forth

; the Father sanctified, for (He says)

Father, sanctify them in Thy Truth,

the Spirit rendered them orators."

§1. That his whole discourse has been framed both unwisely and unhappily, is full easy to

shew. And in this too he wanders, and how, I will say. For One indeed is the Nature of the Godhead, but the Father exists in His Proper mode

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and the Son too and likewise the Spirit: yet are all things wrought by the Father and through the Son in the Spirit, and when the Father is (so to say) moved to ought, yet does the Son surely work in the Spirit; and though the Son or the Spirit be said to fulfil ought, this is full surely of the Father: and through the whole Holy and Consubstantial Trinity runs the Operation alike and Will unto everything.

On this subject we say thus. But view again how clearly and evidently, although he says that the Word out of God has been made Flesh, he

mis-coins the force of the ideas, and bears it far away from rightness, representing the Incarnation as an operation of His: for he adds forthwith, "wilt thou another operation of the Trinity besides these?" as though he had already shewn the first operation of God the Word, His being made Flesh according to the Scriptures. And what is the other after the first operation, he shews as he supposes. He says, "The Son indwelt in the body:" a God-clad man therefore is Christ. Next the Word of God the Father is shewn operating this alone for man: so that even though the blessed Evangelist say,

The Word was made Flesh and tabernacled in us

it indicates nothing else to us but just this alone, that the Word being God dwelt in a man just as in ourselves too. For

we are

temples of the living God,

and

herein know we that He is in us because He gave us of His Spirit.

But thou

wilt not (I suppose) say this, shuddering at the blasphemy, but wilt confess with us, that the Word of God has been made Man (and this is the Incarnation): and wilt agree that He hath remained God, and kept the Beauty of His

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proper Nature, even though He have the name, Sow of Man, and have been made so of a truth. What then didst thou learn, and say that the Father co-seated with Himself the manhood that was assumed, and not rather that there sitteth on the Throne of His proper Godhead, in the Good-Pleasure of God the Father, the Word That sprang from Him, when made Man too: in order that His Human Nature be not conceived and spoken of by us as something other than He, albeit the union that is of truth

shews us that He is One and that His Flesh is not alien from Him?

In this too thou wilt therefore be caught speaking falsely and in no slight degree erring from fit reasoning. And if to say that the Word has been made Flesh is nought else than that He being in the Excellence of Godhead and abiding what He was, hath become Man, what glory from without will He be in need of, Himself the Lord of Glory? For confessedly was He being glorified, the Spirit working Divine signs

;

yet not as a God-clad man, gaining this thing from an alien and superior Nature, even as do WE, but rather as using of His own Spirit: for He was God by Nature and not alien to Him is His Spirit. Hence we say that not from without nor by adoption has the operation of the Spirit been given to Him, even as unto us, or to the holy Apostles: for to them hath Christ given

authority

over unclean spirits to cast them out,

and commanded them

to heal both every sickness and every ailment in the people.

From within therefore and from

Himself is His Spirit, And an evident demonstration of this will be His being able to supply It to others too and

not of measure,

as the blessed Evangelist

saith. For the God of all measured to

the saints the grace through the Spirit, and to one He

gave the

word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge,

to another,

gifts of healing:

and this I think is that those who have the operation have power

of measure:

but our Lord Jesus Christ, putting forth the Spirit out of His own

fulness, even as doth the Father Himself, gives It

not

of measure

to those who are worthy to receive It. Why

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then, most excellent sir, dost thou make Him Who giveth the Spirit

not of measure,

connumerate with those who have It in measure, saying that His glory has been cemented

by the Spirit and that He has been operated on, like one of us, receiving as a grace support from Him, rather than working Divine signs through His own Spirit.

For the all-daring Jews, whetting against Him a bitter tongue, unholily said,

This man casteth not out devils save in Beelzebub the prince of the devils

; but our Lord Jesus Christ convicting them of no small folly yea rather of impiety, says,

I

in Beelzebub, prince of devils, cast out devils, by whom do your sons cast them out?

for the glorious and mighty choir of the holy Apostles, performing miracles

in the Name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth,

is marvelled at: and of a truth they returned rejoicing and saying,

Lord even the devils are subject to. us in Thy Name.

But if it be possible that in the name of any one of those operated on, others too should avail to accomplish the like, let him come, let him tell us why no ono is marvelled at for rebuking unclean spirits or having accomplished ought else that passes reason, in the name of any saint.

But

they

are operated upon by the Spirit and have a measured grace,

He,

as God in-worketh, and through His own Spirit achieveth without toil the things whereby He is marvelled at. And verily the woman who was sick of the issue of blood came one time secretly behind Him (thus is it written)

and touched the border of His garment and immediately her issue of blood stanched,

which Christ now understanding, says

Who touched Me?

and when at this the Divine-speaking disciples said,

Master, the multitude are thronging Thee and pressing Thee,

He said again,

Somebody touched Me, for

I

know that might went forth of Me.

Understandest thou then that not as introduced from without, but from within and out of Himself hath He the power to inwork and to free from weaknesses?

And the blessed Evangelist Matthew too somewhere writeth,

And the whole multitude were seeking to touch Him, for there went might out of Him and healed all.

His

might

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then is His Spirit, and the Divine-uttering David will give us proof, saying,

By the Word of the Lord were the Heavens stablished and by the Spirit of His Mouth all their might.

The

Mouth

of God the Father he says is the Word That is out of Him, by Whose Spirit the things made through Him, are stablished in being. I have now therefore said that he brings down to nothing the Mystery of Godliness, which has been marvelled at by the holy Angels themselves too, and recking nought of the dogmas that pertain unto truth, he makes light of them saying, "Wilt thou another operation of the Trinity besides these? the Son dwelt in the body, the Father commended him when baptized, the Spirit fashioned him in the Virgin." And that the truth will follow surely upon the things which we have said, and that we have made no mere condemnation of his words, but rather a clear and true conviction of them, himself will shew saying elsewhere on this wise,

"And the proof of co-work is evident, The Son became man, the Father enthroned Him, the Spirit honoured Him by signs."

§2. Will any one doubt even after this that the aim of his ideas looks to unlearning alike and unholiness, and is bold against the doctrines of piety? for like as he unwisely casts forth the Word of God from being made Flesh and says that He wrought an indwelling in man, so too again does he take the being made man, albeit the holy Churches in every region under Heaven, and the venerable Fathers themselves who put forth unto us the definition of the right and undefiled Faith, viz. (the Holy Ghost speaking in them) that the Word of God was made flesh and became Man, conceiving that this is nought else save only the being made man as we, and being born after the flesh of a woman, because He hath also been made with us under the Law, Who as God is above the Law.

But since (as I have already full often said) his aim is to undo the Truth, therefore he alone (and that strenuously) lifts himself up, and opposes the opinions of all,

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and brandishes arms against the Ineffable glory, and what he alone thinks, endeavours to bring in secretly as a kind of rubbish upon the churches of God: for he maintains that the Incarnation is indwelling, and not rather that the Word out of God partook like us of blood and flesh, albeit the Word hath indwelt and indwells yet in all the saints, but has once been made as we, and has partaken Personally in a single flesh, wherein He is believed both to have died and to have risen for us: for of His own will He suffered in the flesh.

But that to no purpose is he flinging about words, and recking little of the absurdity of his language, says that Christ was ennobled by signs through the Spirit, the words which have been just cited, sufficiently (as I think) shewed: but let us examine, if you please, his other words. 'The Father (he says) commended;' what then

commended

here is, I cannot understand: for the word is confessedly a word of the market and the mob, and replete with commonplace trickery; but I suppose that he wanted to indicate,

set forth,

for example, or,

hath witnessed to.

How then (tell me) did the Father commend? did He exhibit one counted worthy of Divine Indwelling? or was it not this at all, but rather His own Son made man, yet abiding even in Flesh, what He was and is and shall be, i. e. God?

For

Jesus Christ Who was yesterday and to-day is the Same even for ever.

Come then, let us examine what is spoken of Him. What says the Evangelist?

And John bare record, saying, I have seen the Spirit descending from, Heaven like a dove,

. . . .

and abiding upon Him, This is He That baptizeth with the Holy Ghost: and

I

have seen and testified that This

is the Son of God.

For our Lord Jesus Christ was about to sanctify economically the Jordan, and deigned with us

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to be baptized, ordering the Mystery of the Economy with flesh through the ways that beseem it: for it was necessary that the Word out of God the Father should be known to have been made Man. Yet was He baptized as Man, He baptized Divinely in the Holy Ghost. And we do not say that He ministered the participation of the Holy Ghost to the baptized either as a servant or by means of any other, but hallowed them, Himself infusing into them

out of His own Fulness

as God by Nature. How then dost thou, disregarding words alike and thoughts that belong to rightness, say that indwelling in man was wrought by God the Word; albeit whereas very many saints have had the God of all indwelling in them, none of them baptized with his own spirit or has been said to indwell Divinely in any and has so indwelt? and Christ Himself dwells in us through the Holy Ghost, Which is His own too, even as God the Father's. And this Himself ratifies to us saying,

But when the Comforter is come, Whom

I

will send unto you from the Father, the Spirit of the Truth, Which proceedeth from the Father, He shall testify of Me.

See then how He says that the Spirit Which proceedeth from God the Father is the own Spirit of the Truth also: and He Himself is of a surety the Truth. How then, if He be of a truth not rather God made man, but man having the Divine Indwelling as His Energy, doth He promise to send down, as His own, the Spirit of God the Father upon them who believe on Him? Yea, as I said, he shakes to nothing the glory of the Mystery, distributing the operation of the Holy Trinity in respect of the things done, and allotting to each of the Persons by Himself what the other hath not wrought.

Again he says on this wise, "The Son chose forth, for

I,

He says,

chose you:

the Father sanctified, the Spirit made orators." O distraction without measure! if all things have been done by the Father through the Son in the Spirit and nothing be done by God the Father, save in this very way;----how is he not surely distraught, who distributes to the Persons severally the Operations unto

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ought of the Untaint and One Godhead, and doth not rather maintain that each thing that is done has been wrought by the Father through the Son in the Spirit? For if the Son is both the Counsel and Wisdom and Might of the Father, full surely will the Father work all things through the Son, as through His Counsel and Wisdom and Might. Thus chose He for their excellence His disciples, thus do we say that those who were chosen out were sanctified, thus that they were made orators, from out One Godhead; that is, by the Father through the Son in the Spirit. For He says,

Holy Father, sanctify them in Thy Truth.

The Truth therefore sanctifies,

i. e. the Son; He infuses .....

too and renders them wise and through the operation of the Holy Ghost; devoutly eloquent. And verily He said in the book of Matthew to His own Disciples,

When they deliver you up take no thought how or what ye shall speak, for it shall be given yon in that hour what ye shall speak, for not

YE

are the speakers, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you;

and through that of Luke,

Settle it therefore in your hearts not to meditate before what ye shall answer, for

I

will give you a mouth and wisdom which all your adversaries shall not be able to gainsay or

resist.

Hearest thou how when the Holy Ghost

speaketh in

them, Himself

gives

the

mouth?

For He is as Word Giver of word and Bestower of the Spirit, as having It as His own Naturally; even as the Father Himself too. The Holy Trinity has therefore the same Operation, and whatsoever things the Father doth and willeth to accomplish, these things doth the Son too in equal manner, likewise the Spirit also. But the giving of the Operations severally to Each of the Persons individually is nought else than to set forth three gods severally and wholly distinct from one another. For the count of Natural Unity in regard to the Holy Trinity, shews I suppose one motion

unto every thing that is done. But if now we say that while One Person is moved, e. g., to work, the Two remain ineffective, how is not a gross severance privily introduced,

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allotting as a certain position to each Person, the being conceived of external to and isolated from the rest, not in respect of His Individual Being (for that were true), but in respect of utter diversity which does not endure language that gathers them into Natural Union? For One Nature of Godhead is conceived of in the Holy and

Consubstantial Trinity

But this good man dares to abridge God the Word Consubstantial with God the Father as though he knows not that He has been made Man, not casting away what He was, but assuming rather what He was not: for he is an advocate for

(as has been said) the Holy Ghost and insults the Son, thus saying to some who have elected to think with Arius,

"They

(he says) contriving greater insult against Him, and severing from the Divine Nature the Spirit Which having formed His Human Nature

(for that,

it says,

which is conceived in

Mary

is of the Holy Ghost),

reformed unto righteousness that which was formed (for

He was manifested,

it says,

in flesh, was made righteous in Spirit),

Which made Him terrible to devils (for

I,

He says,

in the Spirit of God, cast out devils)

; Which made His Flesh a Temple (for

I saw,

it says,

the Spirit descending from Heaven like a dove and it abode upon Him

); Which granted Him to be taken up (for, it says,

having given commandment to the holy Apostles whom He chose forth, He was taken up through the Holy Ghost

): This I say which bestowed on Christ so great glory they make Christ's bondman."

§3. The daring then to sever the Spirit from the Divine

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and Untaint Nature, is (I assent) the part of a bad and sinful mind and one far removed from what is fit (for He is Consubstantial with God the Father, and moreover with the Son Himself and is believed to be God and out of God): but I think that we should, letting this be for the present, examine the words before us and with all attention see whither they look. For says he "Doing a greater insult against Him

(i. e., the Word out of God the Father) and severing from the Divine Nature the Spirit Which formed His Human Nature." Whose Human Nature, most excellent sir, sayest thou has been formed through the Spirit? albeit thou hadst but now made discourse to us about the Only-Begotten Himself Who was begotten Ineffably out of God the Father; for thou wert calling Him "Divine Nature," and His I suppose and none else's you say the Human Nature is. Therefore call to mind thine own words, for thou saidst it was the own Flesh of the Word,

i. e., with a reasonable soul therein, for thus will the manhood be His. Then how, if the Word out of God the Father be One with His own Flesh, dost thou suppose that he lacks God-befitting Might and that the Holy Ghost made him terrible to devils, as though he could not do this of his own nature? and again the being able to crush Satan, as by the gift of another and hardly borrowed?

If then thou knowest that to sever the Spirit from His Divine Nature is (and justly) the most disgraceful of charges, His (it is manifest) is the Spirit, as proceeding

through His Ineffable Nature Itself and Consubstantial with Him, and He will not need the might that is from It as something external and adventitious, but will use Him rather as His own Spirit, and will render Himself terrible to the devils through Him. But if it seem good to thee to shew that they who sever are unimplicated in charges of impiety, how didst thou just now call them to us insolent? and how dost thou not perceive that thou art numbering thyself with them, if thou sayest that the Word out of God the Father united to flesh, needed just like any of ours and a mere man, the aid of the Spirit that He might

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be terrible to the unclean spirits? For even though He say that He casts out devils in the Spirit of God, how must one not see that the economy of the expression is worthy of marvel? For the chiefs of the Jews, envious of the renown of our Saviour and opening against Him an unbarred mouth, used to babble (miserable ones!) saying that He

cast out devils in Beelzebub prince of the devils:

but He with His innate clemency toward all, drawing unto what was better and true those who have erred or who were choosing to let loose their tongues upon Him, was attributing rather to God Who is by Nature, the glory of being able to crush Satan, saying that

in the Spirit of God

He chased away the wicked spirits: and not as putting Himself outside of being God by Nature and of having the Holy Ghost as His own: but since it was meet and worthy of God-befitting skill to intercept the wrath of those who were desiring His death and to cut off occasions from those who were offended at Him, for they were attacking Him saying,

For a good work we stone Thee not but for blasphemy, because

THOU,

being a man, makest Thyself God:

therefore skilfully does He condescending to them who were yet weak say,

the Spirit of God,:

for He knows, as I said, that He is God by Nature together with Him Who begot Him, and has all things of His, save only the being Father. Wherefore did He also say to Him,

All Mine are Thine and Thine Mine and I have been glorified in them,

and to ourselves making discourse concerning the Holy Ghost, He says,

All things that the Father hath are Mine, therefore I said unto you that of Mine shall He take and, declare it unto you.

For as the Holy Ghost proceedeth out of the Father being His by Nature, in equal wise is He through the Son Himself too, His Naturally and Consubstantial with Him. Hence even though He be glorified through the Spirit, yet is He conceived of as glorifying Himself through His own Spirit, and not as though it came to Him from without even though He be seen as made Man like us.

It is besides unsafe to say this also concerning the Spirit, "Which hath made His Flesh a Temple." For it was the

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own Flesh of the Word, and this thyself has just now acknowledged to us, for thou saidst that His is the human nature, and the Holy Body taken out of the holy Virgin is called His Temple: His own again is His Spirit, and never will the Word out of God the Father be conceived of without His own Spirit. Better therefore were it and wiser, to say that the Body is the Temple of the Word and the flesh His own, and to believe that with the Word is ever His Spirit, just as also with the Father Himself too.

Not without blame moreover would I say that is his saying that Assumption into Heaven has been given Him by the Spirit as to a mere man. For He chose His Disciples

through the Holy Ghost, He was taken up

as God, not receiving this as a gift from Another; but Himself rather as a first-fruit of the human nature renewed unto immortality presenting Himself to God the Father and

consecrating

for us a new and living way

and that

entereth into the inner part of the veil,

whither the forerunner

is said to have

entered in our behalf, after the order of Melchiscdech made an High

Priest for ever.

But that when Christ ascended above, the Holy Ghost was in Him as His own, none will doubt. How then didst thou not fear (tell me) to say that "This Which gave this so great glory to Christ, they make Christ's bondman?" For they who make Him Christ's bondman are confessedly impious and dishonour the Very Word Who is Consubstantial with God Himself, arraying in slave-befitting measures the Spirit Which is of Him and in Him by Nature and His own: but the saying that the glory was given Him by the Spirit, is a manifest proof of the uttermost infatuation.

But you will be caught idly babbling herein, and not understanding the Mystery to Him-ward, yea rather both thinking and saying clean contrary to yourself. For if thou hast believed that the Word being God has been made Flesh (for thou saidst that His was the human nature) why dost thou say that the Lord of glory, as though He had not

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glory of His own, needed it from the Spirit, and reckonest Him in the measures of the creature to which all things are from without and given? for

what hast thou that thou receivedst not,

will it befit the creature to hear.

Yea but (he says) I find Emmanuel saying.

Father, glorify Thy Son:

add therefore what remains; this is,

That Thy Son too may glorify Thee.

If thou assert that the Son, as lacking

glory,

desires that of the Father, what dost thou say, when the Father too is glorified of the Son? is it as not having glory or needing it of another? away with the mis-counsel! for verily is it trickery and unholy thought and nought else. For the Divine Nature and that passeth all natures

dwelleth in the light unapproachable

and hath authority over all things and to Him is ascribed the glory which most befits it alone: but when the Only-Begotten Word of God was made man and was about

by the grace of God

through His own flesh to

taste death for every man,

and undo its might hard-to-withstand, quickening as God His own Temple, He devises the prayer as Man, and wills the Father to consent with Him Who was transforming the nature of man to what it was at the beginning and renewing it unto incorruption, and displaying it superior to the meshes of death: that ancient curse and the sentence upon the First-formed being undone.

Hence since visible in flesh, He is preached Son of God by Nature and in truth, He says,

Father glorify Thy Son,

rendering Him as Man, superior to both death and decay, that He may be believed to be

Thine, being as God Life by Nature, according to the count of His own Nature: for then will the Son too glorify Thee. Glory truly is it to God the Father that it be believed by us, that He, Very God and Life and Life-giving, begat equal and like to Himself in everything, ineffably and beyond understanding, the Son, Who was in no lesser state, even though He have been made in flesh, but preserved wholly unimpaired the Supernatural and Choice Beauty of His inherent Natural Nobility, being Himself too Life as out of Life, and

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all-availing and achieving without toil and bestowing in-corruption on those subject to death and decay.

Hence even though the Son be said to be glorified by the Father, consider the measure of the human nature, sever not into two [after the Union] the One Christ and Son and Lord, but confess One and the Same, God made Man

, and the Same in like manner Lord of glory as God, and recipient of glory in His Human Nature. For consider that, albeit by Nature and in verity God and King of all and Lord, He is said to have been

set King,

when, made man as we, He hath humbled Himself and been made obedient to God the Father and with us under the Law. In no wise therefore will the things that pertain to the measures of the emptiness trouble the wise and understanding and settled in the faith; but from them alike and from the things that befit the Divine Nature, do they acknowledge the Son, the Same God and Man.

But he comes not forward with sound words, but having swerved exceedingly to what is unruly, he busies himself

without understanding, and deems fit to hold what please himself alone and what he thinks well to deem are understood aright. And he destroys others too, in addition to to what he has said severing into two the One Lord Jesus Christ, calumniating also our Divine Mystery itself from not enduring to confess with us, that not like one of the holy Prophets, or again Apostles and Evangelists, was Christ a God-clad man, but God rather made Man, and hath partaken in verity of blood and flesh. He said in this wise again, putting forth his words as of the Person of Christ,

that eateth My flesh and drinketh My Blood

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abideth in Me and

I

in him.

Remember that what is said is about the flesh.

As the Living Father sent Me,

Me, the visible: but sometimes I misinterpret. Let us hear from what follows:

As the living Father sent Me, he

says the Godhead,

I

the Manhood: let us see who it is who is

mis-interpreting. The heretic says [he says

] here the Godhead,

Sent Me

God the Word.

As the living Father sent Me,

according to him,

and

I

live,

God the Word,

because of the Father.

After this,

And he that eateth Me he too shall live.

Whether do we eat, the Godhead or the flesh?"

§4. Thou sayest therefore that the flesh alone has been sent, and affirmest that it it is which is seen: it therefore suffices also alone by itself to quicken that which is tyrannized by death. Why then do the God-inspired Scriptures tell a tale to no purpose and over and over assert that the Word out of God the Father was made Flesh? for what need at all would there be of the Word, if the human nature sufficeth for us, even though conceived of alone and by itself, so as to be able to bring to nought death and to undo the might of decay? and if it is as you suppose and choose to think, not God the Word Who has been sent through being made as we, but the flesh alone which is seen has been sent by the Father, how is it not clear to all, that we have been made participant of a human body and one in no wise whatever differing from our own?

how therefore do you elsewhere laugh at those who so think? for thou saidst again,

"I will speak the words too of offence. Of His own Flesh was the Lord Christ discoursing to them;

Except ye eat,

He says,

the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink His Blood, ye have no Life in you:

the hearers endured

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not the loftiness of what was said, they imagined of their unlearning that He was bringing in cannibalism."

§5. And how is the thing not plain cannibalism, and in what way is the Mystery yet lofty, unless we say that the Word out of God the Father has been sent, and confess that the mode of that sending was the Incarnation? For then, then we shall see clearly, that the Flesh which was united to Him and not another's flesh, avails to give Life, yet 'because it has been made the very own of Him who is mighty to quicken all things,' For if this visible fire infuses the force of its natural inherent power into those substances with which it comes in contact, and changes water itself though cold by nature into that which is contrary to its nature and makes it hot; what wonder or how can one disbelieve that the Word out of God the Father being the Life by Nature rendered the Flesh which is united to Him, Life-giving? for it is His very own and not that of another conceived of as apart from Him and of one of us. But if thou remove the Life-giving Word of God from the Mystical and true Union with His Body and sever them utterly, how canst thou shew that it is still Life-giving? And Who was it who said,

He that eateth

My Flesh and drinketh My Blood, abideth in Me and

I

in him?

If then it be a man by himself and the Word of God have not rather been made as we, the deed were cannibalism and wholly unprofitable the participation (for I hear Christ Himself say,

The flesh profiteth nothing, it is the Spirit that quickeneth,

for as far as pertains to its own nature, the flesh is corruptible

, and will in no wise quicken others, sick itself of the decay that is its own): but if thou say that it is the Own Body of the Word Himself, why dost thou speak portentously and utter vain things, contending that not the very Word out of God the Father has been sent, but some other than of Him, "the visible," or His Flesh, albeit the God-inspired Scripture every where proclaimeth One Christ, full well affirming that the Word

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was made Man as we and defining herein the tradition of the right Faith.

But out of overmuch reverence, he blushes (it appears) at the measures of emptiness and endures not to see the Son Co-Eternal with God the Father, Him who is in the Form and Equality in everything with Him Who begat Him, come down unto lowliness: he finds fault with the economy and haply leaves not unblamed the Divine Counsel and Plan. For he pretends to investigate the force of the things said by Christ, and as it were taking in the depth of the ideas; then bringing round (as he thinks) my

words

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to a seeming absurdity and ignorance; "Let us see, he says, who it is that

mis-interprets.

As the Living Father

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sent Me,

for

I live

(according to him) God the "Word,

because of the Father, and he that eateth Me he too shall live:

which do we eat, the Godhead or the flesh?" Perceivest thou not therefore at length how thy mind is gone? for the Word of God saying that He is sent, says,

he also that eateth Me, he too shall live.

But WE eat, not consuming the Godhead (away with the folly) but the Very Flesh of the Word Which has been made

Lifergiving, because it has been made His Who liveth

because of the Father.

And we do not say that by a participation from without and adventitious is the Word quickened by the Father, but rather we maintain that He is Life by Nature, for He has been begotten out of the Father who is Life. For as the sun's brightness which is sent forth, though it be said (for example) to be bright because of the sender, or of that out of which it comes, yet not of participation hath it the being bright, but as of natural nobility it weareth the Excellence of him who sent it or flashed it forth: in the same way and manner, I deem, even though the Son say that He lives

because of the Father,

will He bear witness to Himself His own Noble Birth from forth the Father, and not with the rest of the creation promiscuously, confess that He has Life imparted and from without.

And as the Body of the Word Himself is Life-giving, He having made it His own by a true union passing understanding and language; so WE too who partake of His holy Flesh and Blood, are quickened in all respects and wholly, the Word dwelling in us Divinely through the Holy Ghost, humanly again through His Holy Flesh and Precious Blood. The most holy Paul will confirm the truth of what I said, writing thus to those in Corinth who believed in our Lord Jesus Christ,

I speak as to wise men,

judge

YE

what I say, the Cup of Blessing which we bless is it not the communion of the Blood of Christ? the Bread which we break is it not the communion of the Body of Christ? for one bread one body are we who are many, for we all are partakers of One Bread.

For having partaken of the

Holy Ghost, we are made one both with Christ Himself

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the Saviour of all and with one another: we are of the same body in this way, that

we being many are one bread one body, for we all are partakers of the One Bread.

For the

Body of Christ which is in us binds us together into unity and is in no way divided. But that through the Body of Christ wo have been brought together into unity with Him and with one another, the blessed Paul will confirm, writing,

For this cause

I

Paul the Prisoner of Jesus Christ in behalf of you Gentiles, if ye heard of the economy of the grace of God which was given me to you-ward, how that by revelation He made known unto me the mystery, as I wrote afore in few words, whereby when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men as now it is revealed unto His holy Apostles and prophets in the Spirit, that the Gentiles should be fellow-heirs and of the same body and co-participant in the promise in Christ.

But since some of those who at first believed, ignorant of the tradition and force of the Mystery were pleased to be borne aside from what was right, celebrating in the churches banquetings and public feastings, the blessed Paul found fault with those who used so to do, writing,

For have ye not houses to eat and to drink in? or despise ye the Church of God and shame them that have not? what shall I say to you? shall I praise you in this? I praise you not; for

I

received of the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus Christ in the night in which He was delivered up, took bread and gave thanks and brake and said, This is My Body given for you, this do in remembrance of Me. Likewise the Cup too after supper saying, This Cup is the New Testament in My Blood, do this as oft as ye drink it in remembrance of Me: for as oft as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye are declaring the Lord's death, till He come.

And that the Mystery is Divine and the participation Life-giving and the might of this unbloody Sacrifice far better than the worship under the Law, is easy to see even from his saying that the things ordained through Moses to them of old time were a shadow, but Christ and what

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is His the truth. The most wise Paul too will help us herein, thus writing,

One that despised Moses' Law died without mercy under two or three witnesses, of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy who trod under foot the Son of God and accounted common the Blood of the covenant wherein he was sanctified, and did despite unto the Spirit of grace?

For they that of old did

sacrifice the lamb ate thereof, but the force of the eating amounted not simply to the satisfying of the belly, nor was it for this that the sacrifices were performed under the Law: but that when death fell on the rest, they might be superior to its suffering and might escape the destroyer. And verily in one night were the first-born of the Egyptians destroyed, but these fenced by the bare type, alone were saved by it, and having the shadow for their shield, prevailed gloriously over death itself too. The types then saved those before us; in what condition are our matters, on whom at length beamed the Truth itself, that is, Christ, Who setteth before us His own Life-giving Flesh to partake of? is it not clear to all? For very exceedingly better and in vast superiority are they. And the might of the Mystery our Lord Jesus Christ making manifest

saith,

Verily I say to you, he that helieveth on Me hath everlasting life,

I

am the Bread of Life: your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and died, this is the Bread which cometh down from Heaven that a man may eat thereof and not die,

I

am the Living Bread Which came down from Heaven, if any man eat of this Bread he shall live for ever and the Bread Which

I w

ill give is My Flesh Which is for the Life of the world.

For since they of the blood of Israel had marvelled at Moses for the largess of manna sent down to those of that time in the desert, which fills up a type of the Mystic Eucharist (for the Law is a shadow), therefore with exceeding skill doth our Lord Jesus Christ minish the type, driving them [from it] unto the truth. For not that (He says) was the Bread of Life, but rather, I Who am out of Heaven and Who quicken all things and infuse Myself into them that eat Me, through My Flesh too that is united to

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Me. Which indeed He made clearer saying,

Verily I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His Blood, ye have not Life in you: he that eateth My Flesh and drinketh My Blood hath eternal Life and

I

will raise him up at the last day, for My Flesh is true meat and My Blood is true drink; he that eateth My Flesh and drinketh My Blood abideth in Me and

I

in him. As the Living Father sent Me and I live because of the Father, he also that eateth Me, he too shall live.

Consider then how He abideth in us and maketh us superior to corruption, infusing Himself into our bodies, as I said, through His own Flesh too, which is

true meat,

whereas the shadow in the Law and the worship under it possess not the truth.

And the plan of the Mystery is simple and true, not overwrought with varied devices of imaginations unto

unholiness but simple as I said. For we believe that to the body born through the holy Virgin, having a reasonable soul, the Word out of God the Father having united Himself (unspeakable is the union, and wholly a Mystery!) rendered it Life-giving, being as God Life by Nature, that making us partakers of Himself spiritually alike and bodily, He might both make us superior to decay and might through Himself bring to nought the law of sin which is in the members of the flesh, might

condemn sin in the flesh,

as it is written. But this no wise (I deem) pleases this dogmatist of new inventions, who like some straying calf runs after only what pleases himself: and minishes the force of the mystery saying,

"Hear the word

Lord

too, sometimes put of the human nature of Christ, sometimes of His Godhead, sometimes of both.

As oft as ye eat this Bread and drink this Cup, ye declare the Lord's Death.

Hear from the foregoing the unlearning of the gainsayers, how they read the mighty profit of the mystery, and whose memorial it imparts to men, and hear not me saying these things, but the blessed

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Paul,

As oft as ye cat this bread,

he said not, As oft as ye eat this Godhead.

As oft as ye eat this bread.

See what is before us concerning the Lord's Body.

As oft as ye eat this Bread,

whereof the Body is the antitype. Let us see therefore whose is the Death.

As oft as ye eat this bread and drink this Cup, ye declare the Lord's Death.

Hear yet plainer in what follows,

Till He come,

who is it Who is coming?

They shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with great glory.

And greater still, the Prophet before the Apostles did more clearly shew Him Who is coming and hath cried aloud proclaiming of the Jews,

They shall look on Him Whom they pierced.

Who then is he that was pierced? the Side: belongs the Side to the body, or the Godhead?"

§6. Again must we speak for the doctrines of the Truth, and oppose, sir, thy words, and before all else must say this to those who will hear: Thy aim is and with all diligence to represent two

christs, to whom severally may belong the title of lordship, but it shall be shewn by us, without any great toil, that you go to this in most unlearned wise. For come tell me who ask thee, what Christ you are defining, whose you say is both the manhood and likewise the Godhead: if the Word out of God the Father, you have clearly confessed that the Same is man also, for you said that His is the human nature: but if him that is born of the Virgin according to thee, you will be caught no less pronouncing that He is God too: for you said that His is the Godhead also. On all sides therefore driven even against thy will to the Truth, confess with us One Christ and Lord: for thus will you cease from saying, "Hear the word

Lord

too, one while put of the human nature of Christ, one while of His Godhead, other while, of both:" for where there is One Son, what room is there to speak of

both?

and why dost thou smile at those who honour our Divine Mystery, saying most

unholily, "

As oft as ye eat this bread and drink the cup, ye declare the Lord's death?

Hear from the foregoing the unlearning of the gainsayers, how they read

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the mighty profit of the mystery and Whoso memorial is set before men."

There is therefore nothing excellent in the unbloody sacrifice, but it profits exceeding little, and he will put the force of the gain thereof in just merely declaring a man's death and making a memorial of one like us. Therefore He lies in saying that He is Life-giving Who knows not how to lie, Christ: "WE too have been cozened having a vain opinion of Him: and now late and with difficulty are we being guided unto the finding of the truth, by reading these thy words. But to you who choose to think thus, shall be said what is spoken through the Prophet's voice,

Lo thine

eyes are not, nor thine heart comely.

For he by no means understandeth, that we setting forth the Death of Christ, confessing too His Resurrection, and gaining thereby perfection in the faith, then becoming partakers of His Divine Nature and that through participating of unity with Him, are sanctified spiritually alike and bodily and are quickened.

For this corruptible must put on incorruption and this mortal put on immortality:

and the robe that is out of Heaven and undecaying and productive of immortality hath Christ become to us. And our proof is the most holy Paul writing,

one while,

Put ye on our Lord Jesus Christ,

at another again,

For as many of you as were baptized into Christ put on Christ,

Who saith in God-befitting way and truly, I

am the Resurrection and the Life.

To those things does he fearing nought put forth yet fouler impiety, adding, "Hear not me saying these things but the blessed Paul,

As oft as ye do eat this bread,

whereof the Body is the antitype. Let us see therefore herefrom whose is the death.

As oft as ye eat this bread, and drink this Cup, ye declare the Lord's death.

Hear yet plainer in what follows,

Till He come:

who then is he that is to come?

They shall see the son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with great glory.

And greater yet, the

Prophet before the Apostles did more clearly shew Him Who is coming and hath cried proclaiming concerning

the Jews,

They shall look on Him whom they pierced.

Who

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then is He which was pierced? The Side, belongs the Side to the Body, or to the Godhead?" Petty therefore as I said, is the profit of the Unbloody Sacrifice, because perchance it hath not been, feasible that the Nature of the Godhead too should be consumed along with the Flesh, because we are not in possession of impossibilities, having the Incorporeal by Itself to eat. But you seem to me to forget that it is by no means the Nature of Godhead that lieth upon the holy Tables of the Churches, yet is it the own Body of the Word Begotten of God the Father: and God by Nature and in truth is the Word. Why therefore dost thou confound all things and jumble them without understanding, all but mocking at our Bread Which is out of Heaven and giveth Life to the world, because it is not called Godhead by the voice of the Divines, but rather the Body of Him Who hath become Man for us, that is, of the Word out of God the Father? And why (tell me) dost thou call it the Lord's Body at all, save because thou knowest it to be Divine and God's? for

all things serve

their Maker.

Yea the things in thy mind are not right, but thou believest Emmanuel to be merely a God-clad man. And then utterly heedless of thoughts and words that belong to piety, thou supposest that the Priest of the Truth, the

wise master-builder

and

teacher of the Gentiles,

the truly holy and all-wise Paul will support thee in thy calumniating, bearing away from the straight and most approved path the force of what are rightly and without adulteration said by him.

For "let us see (he says) herefrom whose is the death.

Till He come.

Who is He Who is coming?

they shall

look

on Him Whom they pierced.

He will come therefore Who suffered death humanly, has been raised Divinely, Who ascended too into the Heavens, Who with all state is on the Throne of the Ineffable Godhead and

co-sitteth with the Father, the Seraphim standing around,

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and the Highest Powers, not unknowing of the measure of their subjection to Him; every Authority and Power and Lordship worshipping Him: for

to Him shall bend every

knee and every tongue shall confess, Lord Jesus, to the glory of God the Father.

He shall come (as I said) seen not in our littleness, but rather in most God-befitting glory. Heaven and the Spirits above encompassing Him as their God and King and standing by the Lord of all. If therefore the Word of God the Father be not rather in flesh, or made Man, but a God-clad man with bodily side and who endured the piercing, how is He seen on the Throne of the Supreme Godhead, revealed to us as a new god fourth after the Holy Trinity? hast thou not shuddered at a mere man, devising worship for the creature? are we then holden in the ancient snares? have we then done insult to God and has the holy multitude of the spirits above gone astray with us? if we have been set free from the ancient deceit, refusing as blasphemous to worship the creature, why dost thou casting us again into the old charges, exhibit us man-worshippers? for WE know and believe that the Word out of God the Father assumed flesh and blood: but since He hath remained the Same, i.e., God, He retained the Dignity of His inherent Excellence over all, albeit in flesh as we, yet being no less God, now too than of old, even though He have been made Man, He hath the Heaven His adorer and the earth worshipping Him: for it is written, that

the earth is full of Thy praise, Thy Virtue covered the Heavens, O Lord.

But THOU again, of thy over much infatuation, seest not that thus He is in Nature and Glory: for thou

saidst, "Who is he who cometh?

they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven

," as though thou fearedst lest any should disbelieve thee saying that He Which cometh is son of man. Thou confirmest the proof thereof with prophetic testimony also: for thou sayest that it is written,

They shall look on Him Whom they pierced.

And yet mightier for proof as thou

supposedst, most foolishly adding, "Who then is it (he says) that is pierced? the

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Side: belongs the Side to body or to the Godhead?" If there were any who say that the Word of God have not been made as we, but came among those on earth in bare Godhead, i.e., in semblance and as it were in shadow, as some of the unholy heretics thought good to think, you would have had some plea for such like framing of words; not passing the bound of what was meet: but since the preaching of the truth says clearly and manifestly that the Word of God was made Flesh and was called as we son of man too and suffered for us in the flesh and will also

so come as

He went up

into Heaven,

according to the Angel's voice too: whom (tell me) dost thou opposing, and whose opinion cutting off as unlearned and of no account, dost thou strive to shew us that HE Who cometh is a man with bodily side which has been pierced through with the spear?

But thine aim (as I said) is to bring in privily to us Emmanuel as a God-clad man and not rather God made Man, for the Word of God has been made Man. And this faith goes along with the holy and Divine Scriptures and the aim of the Apostolic and Evangelic Tradition tends to this same thing. But THOU again art talking big in another way too: for thou pretendest to be finding fault with those who mingle into one essence, the nature of the flesh and of the Godhead (albeit there is no one as I deem who mingles them up or mixes them one with other), and sayest,

"Why

, as we were just now hearing, when both are according to thee mingled, does our Lord, delivering to the disciples the force of the Mystery, thus say,

He took bread and gave thanks and gave

to His disciples

saying, Take, eat all of you

for

this is My Body.

Why said He not, This is My Godhead Which is being broken for

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you? and again giving the cup of the Mysteries, He said not, This is My Godhead Which is being poured forth for you, but

This is My Blood which is being shed for

you

for the remission of sins.

§7. That it is therefore an exceeding folly to want to oppose oneself to those who are not at all, and to no purpose to march forth, taking for contradiction that which no one (I suppose) cared either to think or say, how is it not manifest to all? for if one chose to contend that the ox is not by nature an horse, nor yet man an horse, whereas no one would even endure to think or say this;----how would he not be laughed at and besides a vain talker,

beating the air and fighting against things uncertain

and devising for himself sweat and toil against what was not there? For I say that something confessed ought first to be laid down, in order that then in duo order ours may be ranged against it.

But let us come to this: for if there be any who should dare to say the Word out of God had been transformed into the nature of the body, one might very reasonably object to him, that He on giving His Body did not rather say, Take eat this is My Godhead which is being broken for you, and, this is not My Blood but rather My Godhead which is being poured forth for you. But since the Word being God made His own the Body born of a woman, without undergoing any alteration or turning, how must not He who saith no untruth say,

Take eat this is My Body?

for being Life as God, He rendered it Life and Life-giving.

Having therefore opened your eyes but a little to the Truth, you will I suppose charge, yourself against yourself, your superfluity of language, on all sides stuttering and unlearnedly arraying against the Doctrines of piety this thy counterfeit and joyless discourse.

[A small selection of footnotes and marginalia, omitting

all biblical references, follows]

"Thus is there One God, the Holy-Trinity by sameness of Nature speeding unto one Godhead, even though in the giving of Names and conceived of in Proper Existence only, It fitly admit the number Three."

Thes. cap. 32 pp. 311 fin. 312. "

He shall glorify Me, for He shall receive of Mine and shall tell

unto you

; for being the Spirit of Truth He will enlighten them in whom He is, and will lead them unto the apprehension of the Truth. And this we say, not as severing into diversity and making wholly separate, either the Father from the Son, or the Son from the Father, nor yet the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son, but (since One Godhead truly is, and is thus preached as viewed in the Holy and Consubstantial Trinity),

defining the Acts belonging to Each and which seem to be attributed to Them severally, to be the Will and Operation of the Whole Godhead. For the Divine and Unsevered Nature will work through Itself, in no divided way, so far as pertains to the one count of Godhead, although Each hath Personal Existence : for the Father is What He is, and the Son likewise, and the Holy Ghost." On S. (John vi. 45) p. 402 O. T. add in S. Johannem p. 784 a. S. Cyril further speaks of the Incarnation as the act of the Whole Holy Trinity. "But He says that He was Incarnate by the Father, although Solomon says,

Wisdom builded her an house:

and the blessed Gabriel attributeth the creation of the Divine Body to the Operation of the Spirit,

when he was speaking with the holy Virgin (for

The Holy Ghost,

he says,

shall come upon thee, and the Power of the most Highest shall overshadow thee)

that thou mayest again understand, that the Godhead being by Nature One, conceived of both in the Father and the Son and in the Holy Ghost, not severally will Each in-work as to ought of things that are, but whatever is said to be done by One, this is wholly the work of the whole Divine Nature."

Ib. on vi. 57 pp. 424, 425 O. T.

The Word was made flesh and tabernacled in

(or

among) us.

The Easterns in their great dread of

Apollinarianism, suspected S. Cyril of pressing S. John's earlier words (

σὰρξ ἐγένετο

)

to mean, was turned into flesh (see p. 44 note e): Nestorius on his side would seem to have rested his, 'the Divine Nature not enduring change into flesh but inhabitation in man' (pp. 28, 30) in part on the words,

tabernacled in us.

S. Cyril gives two most carefully-weighed expositions of the verse at pp. 4, 5 and 35.

Thus the MS., omitting the intermediate part,

ver. 32 and most of 33. Omissions of this sort are not uncommon, even in good MSS., while the frequent citation of these verses by S. Cyril, together with the sense, shew

that the omission is a slip of some transcriber. The omission seems to indicate that as in other places so here too S. Cyril read

from Heaven

in verse 33 also and so that the omission took place through the eye of the scribe wandering from the words

from heaven

in verse 32 to those same words in verse 33.

There appears to be an omission here;

the Roman editors conjecture that

τὸ ἅγιονπνεῦμα

may be to be supplied.

"Following the faith of the holy Fathers we say that the SON was in God-befitting and Ineffable way truly begotten out of the Essence of God the Father, and that He is conceived of in His Proper Hypostasis, yet is united in Identity of Essence with Him Who begat Him, and is in Him and hath again the Father in Himself. And we confess that He is Light out of Light, God out of God by Nature, Equal in glory and

in work, Impress and Radiance and in all Equal, in nought minished. For thus, the Holy Ghost being counted besides, the Holy and Consubstantial Trinity is united in One Nature of Godhead."

Ep. 1 to Monks p. 6 b.

This is given by Mercator with the heading,

Also from the second volume quire

as though against the Arians and Macedonians,

p. 118 Bal.

I have construed this from a Syriac extract in one of

Severus' Epistles, which supplies the words,

confess

and

the Same, God made Man,

and gives rightly

instead of the

of the present Greek text.

Severus' ms. omits the words just above

after the Union,

and very likely rightly.

Marius Mercator gives a Latin translation of this, citing it as "in another treatise in the fifth quire of the book,

On the passage of Holy Scripture where it says,

If thou shalt have remembered that thy brother hath ought against thee." Op. p. 115

Baluz. It occurs also in a fuller form among the passages cited before the Council of Ephesus,

ib. pp 209, 210. and by S. Cyril in his Defence of his 11th chapter against the Eastern Bishops, pp. 192 e 193 a b.

[he says]. I have supplied this to fill up the sense from S. Cyril's fuller citations against the Eastern bishops.

10.

S. Cyril means that if not God the Word have been

sent

but a mortal body

only, to this same must refer the words which follow,

He. that eateth

Me,

he too shall live,

must refer to a mortal body only, and one just like ours, so that our food should be no longer the Eucharist but only that.

11.

See the same explanation given in S. Cyril's commentary on S. John, ad

loc.p. 435 O.T.

12.

S. Cyril in his great Letter to the monks which Nestorius had seen (see above p. 20 note 1) and was apparently contradicting had said, " And the Divine-uttering Paul will assure us, saying,

But when the fulness of

time came God sent forth His Son made of a woman made under the law, in order to redeem them that were under the law, in order that

WE

might recover the adoption.

Who then is He who is sent,

made

(as he said) under the law and of a woman, save He Who is above laws as God? but since He has been called man, made under the Law too,

in order to be in all things likened to His brethren?" E

p. 1 to the monks, p. 13 b. And in his 16th Paschal homily, "For as the Divine-uttering Paul writes,

God sent forth His

Son

made of a woman made under the law.

For we do not say that the Word of God came down into a man born through woman, in just the same way as He was in the Prophets; but rather we shall crown with right approval John's voice clearly and truly saying,

And the Word was made flesh and tabernacled among us.

And we shall conceive that the Word has been made flesh, participating in flesh and blood; and this in like way with those who are in blood and flesh, ourselves." p. 227 d e.

Nestorius' objection to the idea of

Sent

anyhow referring to God the Word appears in his objections on pp. 48, 51, 52, 84 as well as

in the present section. To it we owe S. Cyril's magnificent teaching here of the Blessings given us in and by the Holy Eucharist: for to the verse specially in controversy, S. (John vi. 57), Nestorius adds the preceding

ver. 56, with a view to the argument he draws from the word

flesh,

and S. Cyril in replying gives the full teaching of the Catholic Church on the subject both of the Eucharist, and of the sending. S. Cyril meets

Nestorius' teaching not only here but (on the Holy Eucharist) in his great Letter (,3 Epistles p. 65 and chapter 11, p. 69) and the Explanation of chapter 11, p. 156 c d. But in his defence of his chapter 11 against the attack of the Eastern Bishops, S. Cyril cites in full this passage of Nestorius and (after alluding to the present treatise in the words that He has already made a long treatise in answer to

Nestorius) proceeds, "What it is he wants to understand, in saying that it is not God the Word Incarnate and made Man that has been sent, but putting severally and apart (as he says) 'the visible,' I cannot say, yea rather his sophism is now evident, for he undoes the plan of the union in order that Christ's Body may be found to be a common body, no longer in truth the 'proper Body of Him who is mighty to quicken all things.'

"For petty confessedly to God the Word are all human things, but since He deigned for our sakes to endure the emptiness that is the salvation of the world, even though He be said to have been sent to preach

remission to captives and recovery of sight to the blind,

He is glorified rather as enduring the abasement of the Economy with flesh, and no one of those who are wont to think aright will (I suppose) find fault because He lowered Himself for our sakes in our condition.

"Does he not therefore by affirming that 'the visible,' to whom alone he hath allotted the fact of being sent, is some other son and christ than the Word out of God, exhibit our mystery as cannibalism, in unholy wise bringing round the mind of believers to feeble notions and essaying to subject to human reasonings what are apprehended by unquestioning faith alone? for not because the Nature of the Godhead is not eaten, will one therefore say that the holy Body of Christ is common: but it is needful to know (as we said before) that it is the Proper Body of the Word which quickeneth all things, and since it is the Body of Life it is also life-giving, for through It does the SON infuse life into our mortal bodies and undoes the mastery of death: and the HOLY SPIRIT of Christ quickeneth us in equal wise; for

it is the Spirit that quickeneth,

according to the Saviour's own voice." Def. cap. 11 adv. orient. p. 193 b c d e. So again in S. Cyril's Letter to the Emperor de recta fide (which Nestorius is very likely to have seen though probably not sent so soon as this) S. Cyril cites the text and says, "Yet how is it not true to say that the flesh hath come not out of heaven, but was out of the Virgin according to the Scriptures? yet is not the Word eaten, but He is seen in thousand ways gathering both into One [uniting] the properties of the natures by an economic coming together (

σύμβασιν

)" p. 35 d e. When S. Cyril republished this treatise in a revised form, he concluded this extract, " gathering both into One and as it were immingling (

ἀνακιρνὰς

)

the properties of the natures." p.

708 a. In his treatise to the Empresses (Eudocia the Emperor's wife and his sister Pulcheria who had been Empress in her Brother's minority), written at the same time as the treatise to the Emperor, S.Cyril says, "

As the Living Father sent Me both

I

live because of the Father and he that eateth Me he too shall live because of Me.

I would gladly ask them who distinguish into two

christs, the One, Who I pray is He Who has been sent by God the Father and Who both lives because of Him and is on that account Life-giving? If therefore it is the Word who is out of Him, bare and by Himself, how is He eaten by us in order that we may live because of Him (for unembodied is the Godhead by Nature)? but if they say that he that hath been sent is man alone and by himself, how is he life-giving because he lives because of the Father? albeit how are not all we

that are on earth among the living, God the Father quickening us, if it is true that

in Him we live and move and are?

Since therefore we all of us live

because of the Father,

how (I pray) is the body of one man alone life-giving on this account and those of the rest have not rather the same operation, seeing that we all (as I said) both are and live

because of the Father?

what then do we say to this? The Word of God appearing in human form has been called Sent (apostle) (for He was sent to

preach remission to captives and recovery of sight to the blind),

but He lives

because of the Father

for He was begotten out of the Living Father: for it must needs, it must needs that the SON born of God the Father Living and Life be full surely Life by Nature. But since He made His own the body which was taken out of the holy Virgin, He rendered it Life-giving and with reason, for it is the Body of the Life which quickeneth all things. Hence we may not sever into two sons the One Son and Christ and Lord; since He is the Same, Life as out of the Father, Life and Living; Lifegiving through His own Body too, as GOD made as we and Incarnate." de recta fide to the Empresses § 40 p. 177 abed. In the Thesaurus S. Cyril speaks of

sending

in reference to either the Eternal Generation or the temporal Birth for our sakes (compare S. Aug. on S. John

hom. 21 fin. pp. 338 sq. O.T. with homm. 36 40, pp. 507, 545 O.T.) " The SON says that He has been sent by the Father, either [

either

is supplied from MSS.] after the mode of obedience and Incarnation (for

He emptied Himself taking servant's form and became obedient unto death

), or as out of the sun the light that is born and emitted from forth it, or out of the fire its heat, indivisibly and inseparably permeating to its participator."

Thes. cap. 32 p. 325. In his comm. on S.John, S. Cyril takes

sent

as belonging to the Incarnation, p. 424

O.T. The very Rev. John Burgon B.D. Dean of Chichester, very kindly sent me from his laboriously constructed Indices of the New Testament citations of the Greek Fathers, a list of the citations in S. Cyril's extant writings of S. (John vi. 57). It is probable that

Nestorius' allusion to S. Cyril's interpretation of

sent,

belongs not to any comment on this verse but to the meaning as given in his great Letter to the Monks; which letter Nestorius elsewhere contradicts.

13.

Here the part between

They shall see

and

They shall look

appears to have been omitted by a not infrequent carelessness of the Scribe in letting his eye wander from the one word to the same

word just below. For the sequel refers to these omitted words

They

shall

see the Son of Man coming in the clouds

and indicates that their omission was accidental, not intentional.

14.

This passage occurs in Mercator, in the middle of a long piece which he gives with the heading,

Also in the sixth quire of the same on Judas, against the heretics

(p. 110 Bal.). The portion preceding this is given below,p.171. The extract concludes, "Sever the nature

but connect the union : confess Christ Son of God, yet a two-fold son, man and God, in order that the suffering may be allotted to the human nature, the undoing of the suffering which was wrought on the man who suffered, may belong to the Godhead alone."

This text was transcribed by Roger Pearse, 2005. All material on this page is in the public domain - copy freely.

Greek text is rendered using

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Early Church Fathers - Additional Texts

Cyril of Alexandria, Five Tomes Against Nestorius. LFC 47 (1881)

Book 5. pp.155-184.

TOME V.

[Translated by P.E. P

USEY

]

Jewish disbelief in Christ followed by some Christian teachers. The SON GOD by Nature gave His own body to death to free us, albeit His Godhead might not suffer. "Glory before the world was," can be no

man's

glory but that of GOD. Father most strictly God the FATHER though He permit such relations to us. 'Crucified out of weakness,' yet, Lord of glory. 'Servant's form.' 'Not Mine own will.' The forsaking on the Cross. He raised His own Body. S. Thomas' confession. Nicene Fathers. Testimony of GOD and man to the SON.

THE Divine-uttering Paul glories in the Sufferings of Christ and says, one while,

But to me be it not that I should glory save in the Cross of Christ through Whom the world has been crucified to me and I to the world,

another while again,

For I am not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of God unto salvation unto every one that believeth, to the Jew first and to the Greek.

And thus did the Spirit-clad

deem right both himself to think and besides to teach others, for he hath written not without purpose, but that he might persuade us to be zealous for the rightness of the faith that was in him, choosing to delight

us in the Sufferings of Christ. But some are ashamed of the Cross and impiously rising up against them that have been made teachers of all below the sun, by reason that they choose to think contrarily, they (wretched ones!) all but smile at Christ's sufferings and and are ashamed of the Gospel, sick with the Jewish unlearning and in no way inferior to them in infatuation. For the Saviour's Cross hath become to them an offence: and verily they beholding the Prince of Life, the fulfilment of the Law, affixed to the wood, they were wagging at Him their impious heads, not believing that God is of a truth made Man and come down unto emptiness, but supposing rather that He was simply a man as

we, and they said,

putting forth

out of the evil treasure

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their

heart evil things, Thou That destroyest the temple and buildest

in three days save Thyself; if Thou be the Son of God, come down from the Cross:

and again,

He saved others, Himself He cannot save, if He be the king of Israel, let Him now come down from the Gross and we will believe on Him.

For they thought not, as I said just now, that He was God by Nature, nor yet in truth Son of God the Father but rather that He was bragging and daring to allot to Himself the glory of the Godhead. Hence they used to say, one while,

For a good work we stone Thee not, but for blasphemy, because

THOU

being a man makest Thyself God;

another while they brought Him to Pilate and besought that He should be crucified, and when he demanded that they should tell the reason of their awkwardness towards Him, they straightway began to accuse Him saying that

He made Himself the Son of God.

But lo now too, not at the hands of them of Israel nor yet from the multitude of the Pharisees, but at their hands who seem to be Christians and are ranked among teachers and them whose lot is the Divine Priesthood, doth He manifestly suffer equal case. For He is disbelieved to be both God by Nature, and One and Alone and Verily Son of God the Father, and the plea of their ill-counsel as to this very thing, that He chose to suffer death in the flesh, albeit for this cause He descended unto emptiness economically, in order that suffering for us in the flesh, He might bring to nought the mastery of death, as being Himself by Nature Life and sprung of Life, God the Father. For the nature of man was sick of decay, in its firstfruits and original root,

i. e., Adam. For since it offended through its disobedience its Law-giver and God and That brought it forth unto being, straightway it was accursed and liable to death, and

death

hath

reigned from Adam unto Moses,

the doom for this extending over the whole seed and race that is from him. For as sprung from corruptible root, corruptible are WE too, and abide (wretched!) holden in the meshes of death. But when the Creator planned good things concerning us and willed to transelement the nature of man, decay being taken away, unto what

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it was at the beginning, He adorned a new root (so to speak) for us, which endured not to be overmastered by death, the One Lord Jesus the Christ, that is, God the Word out of His Essence made man as we,

made of a

woman.

For we do not say that just a man is God-bearing, but that the Word out of God has been of a truth

Its very Self united to flesh, in order, having laid down His Life for us, and given to death His own Body for our sakes economically, and then shewn it superior to corruption through the Resurrection from the dead, to give pledge to all who believe on Him that He will raise up us too, and make us superior to the bonds of death, and little heedful of the nets of decay.

Hence I deem it is that the Divine-uttering Paul too, makes a matter of much speech and marvel, the love towards us of God the Father. For he said thus,

What shall we say

therefore to these things? if God he for us, who

against us? He that spared not His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him too freely give us all things

albeit exceeding many are the sons by grace and of adoption (for we too have been called

gods and all

are

sons of the Most High

), but One and Alone is He Who is so by Nature and is His Own, that is, God the Word Who is out of Him even when He was made Flesh. For thus do we say that He has been given even for all, as Himself too somewhere

saith,

For God so loved the world that He gave His Only-Begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.

Only-Begotten therefore is

He Who was given, for He Alone sprung from the Essence of God the Father, the Word both out of Him and in Him:

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but since He hath, been made Man, therefore do we make our faith in Him

declaring

His

death

after the Flesh and confessing His Resurrection, knowing that the Same is both Son before the ages and Man economically in the last times and that He

suffered in the flesh

for our sakes and hath risen from the dead.

But (I know not how) the advocate of the Jews' unlearning is indignant at our words, for he said again,

"That therefore the divine Scripture puts,

Son,

of the birth from the Virgin, Mother of Christ, we have shewn. Hear of His death also, whether

God

is any where put, so as we might bring in a passible God:

Being enemies,

says, we were

reconciled to God through the death of His Son,

it said not, Through the death of God the Word."

§1. True is it, according as it is written,

There is a righteous

man

that perisheth in his righteousness:

for that whoso nature is to hurt, putting on sometimes the shew of being helpful, turns aside from what is right, even the well stablished mind. For he thinks he is pious in no slight degree, essaying to confirm what is confessed by all, therefore saying, In His own Nature the Word out of God the Father is as God beyond sufferings and superior to death

;

for how should Life die? Yet he not a whit the less too offends against the doctrines of the Church, wholly unrecking of the economy with flesh of the Only-Begotten, and in no wise considering the depth of the mystery.

If it were under examination by us, what were the Nature of the Word, or we had to declare it to them who asked and were desirous of learning it; it would I suppose be of a surety meet and necessary, hastening to go through every wise and true thought, to shew that It is unapproachable by death and utterly removed from sufferings. But since the mode of the Incarnation gives Him, so far as pertains to the plan of the Economy, even though He choose to die in the flesh, to suffer nought in His own Nature, why bereavest thou us of our fairest boasts? for thou heard'st Him say.

The Good Shepherd layeth

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down His Life for His sheep.

Hence even though He be said to suffer, we know that He is Impassible as God, we say that He hath suffered death economically in His own Flesh, in order that treading it and risen in that He is Life and Life-giving, He might transelement unto incorruption that which is tyrannized over by death,

i. e., the body: and so unto us too spreadeth the might of the achievement, extending unto the whole race. And verily the Divine-uttering Paul

saith, I

through the Law died to the law that I might live unto God, I am crucified with Christ, I live, no longer

I,

but Christ liveth in me, and wherein I now live, I live in faith, in the flesh

of the Son of God Who loved me and gave Himself for me. I do not frustrate the grace of God.

For no longer do we live our own life but rather that in Christ, and true is it that

One died for all that they who live should no more live unto themselves but to Him which died for them and rose.

For before that the Only-Begotten Word of God beamed on us, mastered by unlearning and darkness and having the yoke of sin and impiously ascribing worship to the creature rather than our Creator and Maker and practising unblamed every kind of baseness, we wretched abode in severance [from Him], in mind hostile to Him, but we have been

reconciled through the death of His Son,

as it is written.

But THOU again hast made but slight account of the truth, and putting forth unto us thy speech unbridled unto vapidness

sayest that the world has been reconciled to God, not through the Only-Begotten,

i. e. the Word That sprang of the Father; and hearing,

the death of His Son,

and investigating subtilly as thou

supposest, the words of the Divine, thou fearedst not to say, "He said not, Through the death of God the Word." Then how (tell me) were such a word wise, yea rather, how were it not replete with utter distraction? for how were it meet (tell me) to set forth the Life as subject to death; and to the Nature Which

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quickeneth all things to lay a charge of decay, how were it not wholly distraught and would it not be, and that with reason, a charge of blasphemy reaching unto the very extreme? By no means therefore does the mind of the saints go along with thy subtilties herein, or rather thy idle words: for it knows, it knows that the Word of God suffered in the flesh for our sakes, and through the death of His own Body hath called the world unto reconciliation with the Father Which is in Heaven. And verily when making His discourse with one of the holy disciples He somewhere said, I

am the Way and the Truth and the Life and no man cometh unto the Father but by Me:

but Truth and Life and Way, who else may be, save the Word which sprang of God, even though He have been made as we, by taking servant's form?

And that through Him we have been manifested

partakers of the Divine Nature

and, we who

once were far,

have been

made nigh,

united participatively through Him to the FATHER and besides to one another in one faith and unity of soul by reason of being made participant of One Spirit; Himself will give assurance saying unto God the Father in

Heaven,

Not for these alone do I ask but for them also which believe on Me through their word, that they all may be one, as

THOU

Father art in Me and

I

in Thee, that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that

THOU

sentest Me, and

I.

the glory which Thou hast given Me, have given them, that they may be one even as

WE

are one, both

I

in them, and

THOU

in Me that they may be perfected into one.

Understand therefore how Himself is of Nature in His own Father but is set forth a Mediator and Reconciler through being made as we: He is in us, both through His own Flesh Which quickeneth us in spirit and through partaking of His holiness, I mean again through the Holy Ghost. And He asketh as glory from the Father to make His own Nature manifest unto us, that It is both Life-giving

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and superior to corruption as God. And verily He said again, I

glorified Thee on the earth by perfecting the work which Thou hast given Me to do, and now do

Thou

glorify Me, o Father, with Thyself with the glory which

I had before

the world was, with Thee.

And a perfected work are WE, in Him first overcoming decay and treading on the might of death, for He lived anew from the dead, having all in Himself.

But haply bearing off to other ideas what has been said, thou sayest that not of God the Word ought these things to be understood, but removing from Him and putting apart by himself him that is born of the holy Virgin as another son, thou affirmest that him it is whom such things befit and art zealous to teach others also to think and say with thee: and wilt (I suppose) surely say that the Only-Begotten Word of God being Lord of glory, would not as though lacking glory, have sought it from the Father. Hear therefore from us too, If thou sayest that the Only-Begotten Son Who is out of God by Nature is not He Who here asketh glory from the Father; who was it who said,

Glorify Me with the glory which I had before the world was, with Thee?

How then (tell me) was he that is of the holy Virgin, conceived of according to thee as man separately,

before the world?

will it not pertain to the Creator of the ages, to have a being elder than the world and Co-eternal with the Father? no one will doubt it of those who are accustomed to think aright. When therefore He emptied Himself receiving servant's form, then, then, desirous to mount up unto the glory inherent in Him by Nature and along with the Flesh which was united to Him, in fit season does He say,

THOU

Father glorify Me with Thyself with the glory that I had before the world was with Thee; that the world may believe that

THOU

sentest Me, and

I,

the glory which Thou hast given Me, have given them, that they may be one as

WE

are One,

I

in them, and

THOU

in Me that they may be perfected into one.

Through Him

|162

therefore have we had

the reconciliation,

for thus hath He perfected the work which the Father hath given Him for consummation. And the supporter of my words will I make again the most holy Paul who thus wrote to those who have been called out of the Gentiles,

But now in Christ

Jesus

YE

who sometime were far off were made nigh in the Blood of Christ: for He is our Peace, Who made both one and undid the middle wall of partition, having abolished in His Flesh the enmity, the law of commandments in ordinances, for to make in Himself of twain one new man, making peace; and that He might reconcile both unto God in one body through the cross, having slain the enmity therein, and came and preached peace to you which were afar off and to them that were nigh,

and again elsewhere too,

Justified therefore by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Therefore we have been reconciled to God the Father through the death of His Son, who brought to nought or slew

the enmity in His Flesh,

according to the faith of the sacred scriptures.

But thyself art undoing the words of the economy and deignest not to confess that the Word of God hath suffered in the flesh for our sakes, making use of certain unskilful loquacity: for thou sayest that

Son

is a name common to the Word Which sprang of God and to ourselves. Then having made God the Word, through Whom we have been saved, no worker of the good things that have been wrought to us-ward, thou wilt be evidently caught allotting the things wherein He is glorified to one as we, conceived of as other than He and apart, and thou supposest that community of name will suffice full well for demonstration of what thou saidst and unrightly

thoughtest; not considering that even though with things which obtain by nature the being ought, certain other of things that be, be said to be co-named, one must not therefore thrust away the things that are by nature, ever putting their properties about those which are by adoption or imitation. But we must (I deem) ever test the natures of things done and allot them to whomsoever they rightly pertain. As for example, the

|163

Father is named and is in truth God, and from Him

is every father-hood

both in heaven and upon earth named,

as it is written, yet are there with us other fathers too both fleshly and spiritual. If therefore ought of things most God-befitting be said of God the Father, will it belong to those too who by adoption obtain the same title with Him, and will the identity of name thrust Him away from the things which in the highest degree befit Him alone? yet how is it not evident to all that it is both absurd and discordant that any of ours should be minded thus to think and say? Why then dost thou ever talking to us of community of name, dishonour the by Nature and truly Son, putting Him forth and rendering Him alien from kindly deeds to

usward? albeit thou oughtest to gather into union what thou blushest not utterly to sever, and

[oughtest] to deem one with His own Flesh the Word that is out of God the Father: for thus wilt thou free thyself from much toil, and deeming aright wilt at length be praised. And thou wilt in no wise say that the Godhead of the Only-Begotten is

passible, but wilt with us confess that He is Life and Life-giving by Nature and moreover beyond all suffering; next that the flesh suffering which was united to Him, He

by the grace of God,

as it is written, tasted

death for every man,

that having shewn His own Temple superior to him who had conquered all that are on the earth, He might be called

the firstfruits of them that slept

and

the firstborn from the dead:

transmitting to us too the grace, that being One and Only Son, both before the Incarnation and after it He might yet be called Saviour and Redeemer of all: and freeing (as I said) from sin all who believe on Him, might become

peace to them that are afar and to the near,

reconciling through Himself to God the Father them who of old worshipped the

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creature and through sin were at enmity with the All-good God.

But severing again into a pair of sons the One Lord Jesus Christ, he says after this wise:

"Hear their other testimony also;

for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

Lo he says

the Lord of glory,

he calls not so the manhood but the Godhead. But this belongs to those who pluck asunder the accurate connection, for when thou

sayest, This is not Lord, but the other is, THOU makest Christ a mere man. What then dost thou say, o heretic in clerical form

? is the man too Lord or not? if then he be Lord, the things said agree; if he be not Lord, do not THOU making Christ a mere man, fasten the reproach of it on me." Then he says, "Hear we the blessed Paul openly crying out who He is who is crucified. Hear then most plainly the

voice,

For

(says he)

He was crucified out of weakness, yet He liveth out of the Power of God.

If He

were crucified out

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of weakness,

who was it who was weak, heretic? God the Word?"

§2. He is carried away unto absurd thoughts and unto a reprobate mind, in no wise understanding the force of the mystery, as seems to me, but rather every way following his own devices and haply afraid, lest he should be caught either thinking or saying ought that pertains to Tightness or truth. For he arrays against himself, as he supposes, the words of the orthodox, but is caught again putting those things which no one of those who are wont to walk aright as to the Faith, would even so much as endure another saying. For we say that He which was crucified is

Lord of glory,

and He is so of a truth: yet acknowledging that the Word of God is inseverable and one with the flesh united, to Him having a reasonable soul, we say that He it is Who offered Himself, as it were the Immaculate Offering and most sweet-smelling Sacrifice of His Own Body, to God the Father, and nailed to the wood

the handwriting that was against us.

And one may hear Him say by the mouth of

David,

Sacrifice and offering Thou wouldest not but a Body preparedst Thou Me, whole burnt sacrifices and for sin Thou tookest no pleasure in: then said I, Lo I come (in the volume of the book it has been written of Me) to do Thy Will, o God.

The commandment according to the Law now availing nought, and perfecting nothing, and God the Father holding the sacrifices through blood unacceptable;----He says that a Body has been prepared for Himself, in order that giving it a Ransom for the salvation and life of all, He might redeem all, from both death and decay and yet more from sins.

We say then that the very Word out of God the Father chose even to suffer

for us in the flesh,

according to the Scriptures: thus hath the most holy Paul instructed us,

Who being in the Form of God held not the being Equal with God a thing to seize, but emptied Himself taking

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servant's form, made in likeness of man and found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, the death of the cross, wherefore God also highly exalted

Him.

View now how He That is in the Form of God the Father as God, the Impress of His Person and in no wise falling short, being and being conceived of in Equality in everything, hath emptied Himself and brought Himself down of His own will unto lowliness.

What then (tell me) will be the mode of the emptying, how again has He been abased

receiving servant's form

and made obedient unto death, the death of the Cross?

is it not clear to all that the High is abased, not that which from itself and of its own nature is in abasement and brought low; that (I suppose) is

emptied

which is full and in need of nought;

receives the servant's form

which before it was free by nature, He is found to be

man

too Who was not so, before He was so found when He was not? Who then is He That was High by Nature and abased Himself unto lowliness? who the full, that He may be conceived of as emptied? who He That is beyond the measures of bondage, that so He may be said to take

the bondman's form?

who that not being aforetime man as we is said to have been so

found?

For I suppose that to dare to allot this to one of those as we and to a common man, would be folly and verily replete with the uttermost of all unwit, but it will pertain with all reason to the Supreme Nature.

But the Word of God, of His exceeding Clemency and Kindness towards us, hath offered for us His own Body and having taken

the servant's form,

hath become

obedient

to God the Father

unto death:

and the choice to suffer in the Flesh, He made not a thing to be spurned, albeit by Nature Impassible as God. Yet does this man foolishly blush at His most God-befitting schemes for us, and thinking he honours Him, wrongs Him: for he bears Him away from the suffering, though no one else says that He suffers in

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His own Nature; and does not perceive that he forbids Him to be confessed Saviour and Redeemer of all, if so be that he is son and lord other than He, separately and apart, through whom we have been saved and redeemed through the precious Cross. And if so be he be simply man, and not rather the Word out of God the Father appearing in human form, let him come, let him shew that he is both in the Form of the Father and in Equality with Him (for

thought not the being equal with God a thing to seize)

and moreover that he took the

form of the servant

as at one time not possessing it, and came to be in emptiness, as possessing fulness in his own nature: for the Divine-uttering Paul says that He Who is in the Form and Equality with God the Father, was made obedient unto Him even

to death, the death of the Cross.

Is not then the absurdity of their notions manifest? when blessed Paul calls Him that was crucified

Lord of glory,

no one will say, 'He is not speaking of the human nature but the Godhead.' For we confess One Christ and Son and Lord of Glory, the Word out of God the Father made man for our sakes and suffering

for us in the flesh,

according to the Scriptures.

But he in no small measure blaming, as wishing to pluck asunder the accurate connection (as himself says), those who allot to God the Word the name of Lordship and bear it away from the human nature:----he falling into forgetfulness of what he said, is caught plucking asunder into two the One, and little recking of accurate (according to him) connection. For he unlearnedly enquires, "Is the man too lord or not? if then he be lord, the things said harmonize." Hence if according to thy witless enquiry, the Word is Lord by Himself and the man lord, two surely are the lords and sons. The force then of accurate connection will in no wise profit them who have believed that one ought to conceive of One Christ and Son and Lord with the Flesh united to Him. For the Person of Immanuel being put and brought forward, though one should say man, we conceive of the Word out of God the Father

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having taken the servant's form and say that He is shewn by the measures of emptiness: and if [we say] Only-Begotten God, we believe the Same now Incarnate and made Flesh. But he (as I said) allotting to a man, individual and alone and considered apart from the Word Which is out of the Father, the achievements of the Economy with flesh, says that he too endured the cross for us and affirms that he is the Lord of glory, putting about a mere creature the glories of the Supreme Nature, for he says, "Let us hear the blessed Paul openly exclaiming who he is that is crucified; for verily

He was crucified out of

weakness but He liveth out of the Power of God;

who is weak o heretic, is it God the Word?"

Utterly imparticipate therefore of all weakness is the Word out of God the Father by us believed to be: for He is the Lord of Hosts. But tell me this, art thou afraid to admit the appellation of weakness in respect to Him? why? albeit the Economy with flesh puts Him apart from all blame, even though He be said to suffer ought of what is beside His own Nature and glory: for if being

Rich He became poor

and was made as we receiving servant's form, even though He should be said to be weak by reason of the human nature, there is nought repugnant, that you should see the Hich poor, the High in low estate, the Lord of Hosts in weakness as we. Marvellous on this account also is the mystery respecting Him. For how is He said also to hunger, albeit Himself

the Bread of Life

and Who came

down from Heaven and giveth Life to the world?

how was He

wearied with the journey,

Who stablisheth the Heavens with His own Spirit?

But thou wilt not endure (it seems) if one say these things of the Only-Begotten Himself, albeit investigating thine own words I find them clearly saying, as of the Person of the Only-Begotten,

"The form of God, I am clad in servant's form: being

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God the Word, am seen in flesh: Lord of all, am clad for your sakes in person of a poor man: hungering visibly,

I supply food to the hungry."

§3. How then, say, didst thou fearing the appellation of weakness and bearing it away from Him, albeit the plan of the economy will it not, say that He hungers visibly,

i. e., humanly, yet Divinely supplies food to the hungry? dost thou not say that it is a form of weakness to be in need of food and to be said to hunger as we? but against them who desire to be fault-finders, full strong will the mode of the economy array itself. We must therefore, either bearing Him away from all things that are said humanly and in mean wise, put such passions about a mere man, or considering that He being God has been made as we, confess that He is impassible in respect of the Nature of the Godhead, but say besides that He endured the weakness in our behalf, according to the human nature and after the flesh, I mean. Since, tell me who ask thee again, The Divine-uttering Paul says that

has been

crucified out of weakness;

but dost thou bear away

this thing from God the Word, saying (I suppose) that it is small and ignoble and not worthy of Him? Other therefore than He is he that was crucified, Whom also our Divine instructor

calls

Lord of glory,

saying,

For had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

Hath He, then yet remained

Lord of Glory

Who put it aside and endured this ignoble and mean suffering? If therefore He hath remained so, neither hath He any loss through being weak. How then fearedst thou to say that the Word of God came to be in this case economically? But if He truly fell from being any longer

Lord of glory,

and any one affirm that it is so, he will incur the charge of the most utter blasphemy and that with reason: for to Him boweth

every knee and

every tongue

shall

confess Lord Jesus Christ, to the glory of God the Father.

For over all that is under Heaven extendeth the glory of Christ Who

suffered for us in the flesh,

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we have full often said. When therefore thou nearest the Spirit-clad saying,

He was crucified out of weakness but He liveth of the Power of God,

understand it piously: for he says that He hath suffered humanly, albeit He hath a nature utterly beyond passion. And so having, He bare with the weak flesh and having suffered death humanly, He lived again Divinely, Himself quickening His own Temple, as the Might of the Father.

And verily when the time was now at hand in which He must endure the Cross for us,

He went away and prayed

saying, Father if it he possihle, let this cup pass from Me,

but added hereto at the close of His Prayer,

Nevertheless

not as

I

will but as

THOU. But since He albeit Word and God all-Powerful, has once been held to be in weakness

like we, He giving the cause of this most economically, says,

The spirit indeed is willing, the flesh weak.

Consider

therefore how He though Himself letting go nought, nor yet suffering weakness in His own Nature, permitted His Flesh

to go after its own laws, and this thing is said to be His, because His Body is His own. Hence the being weak

according to the Flesh proved to us that He was Man, the not enduring death and scaring away decay from His own

Body that He is God Who knows not to be weak: for He is the Life and Might of the Father. For that the weakness

herein unwonted and unwilled by Him

, He made voluntary

in the good-pleasure of God the Father, to save all under Heaven, Himself will teach saying,

For I have come down

from Heaven, not to do Mine own Will but the Will of Him That sent Me, that of all which He hath given Me I should

lose nothing but should raise it up at the last day.

Yet how, if the will of the Father be good, does the Son say that He has His

own Will,

a good one surely, and other than this? For if it be not good, how is He any longer believed to be His Image and Impress? how will He be true, saying, I

and the Father are One,

and,

He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father?

for not in the not good, would one behold the Good by Nature. But verily the

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Son being Good hath sprung from a Good Father and is His exact Image in everything. What Will therefore, which He says is His own, does He letting go, say that He hath done that of the Father? He was about by the death of His own Flesh to set free from death those who had become subject thereto,

i. e., us. But to die in the Flesh was ignoble, and unwonted (as I said) and repugnant to Him: yet hath He endured this too for our sakes in the Good-pleasure of the Father. For He knew, He knew and that well that a little dishonoured by reason of the sufferings of the Flesh He should save all, transforming them unto what was incomparably better. For

if any be in

Christ, a new creature, old things are gone by, behold all things have become new,

as it is written.

The God-inspired Scriptures therefore proclaim to the world One Christ and Son and Lord and say that He is the Lord of Glory and that He of His own Will bare for our sakes the contumelies of the Jews, and economically endured Death upon the wood, not in order with us to remain dead, but that having undone the might of death which none might withstand, He might bring again to immortality the nature of man: for He was God in Flesh.

But this man again essaying to gather to himself from all quarters occasions of severing into two the One, arrays himself to no purpose against those who exist not at all, and makes accusal of certain as though they spake against the truth and desired to adulterate the plan of the mystery, and says,

"Here

I would gladly enquire of the heretics who mix up into one essence the Nature of the Godhead and of the Manhood, who he is here who is by the traitor betrayed to the Jews: for if there have been a mixture of both, both were together holden of the Jews, both God the Word and the nature of the manhood: which is it that endured the slaughter? I am obliged to use meaner

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words that what I say may be plain to all. To whom (tell me) befell this deed? for if the Nature of the Godhead, how darest thou commingle both? God

hath both remained unholden of the Jews and hath not shared with the flesh in its slaughter: whence (tell me) dost thou get in the mixture?

§4. If then there be who say that there has been a commingling of the natures one with another and that they undergo an impossible fusion, and who maintain that the Nature of the Word could suffer change into flesh, or the Flesh united to Him ever pass into Godhead; they have erred from the truth and, out of their right mind, yea rather sick with the veriest distraction, they shall hear from

us,

Ye do err not knowing the Scriptures nor the Power of God

; for steadfast is the Nature of God the Word, nor knows it to suffer a

shadow of turning,

but participate in

flesh and blood

and taking

part

with us

in the same,

as it is written, He abode the Same. But if every one who is educated in the Holy Scriptures holds it repugnant to so much as hear that any change was wrought in the Only-Begotten, why dost thou admitting as true and really spoken things so disgraceful and condemned by one voice by all and utterly rejected, essay to sever the Indivisible and that after the Union? For if thou wouldest indeed of a truth learn who it is who is by the traitor given up to the Jews, and endured slaughter, thou wilt clearly hear, The One and Only Christ and Son and Lord, that is the Word out of God Who took the servant's form, made man and Incarnate: for He was sold by the traitor to the rulers of the Jews, and was holden humanly, because He was Man too along with abiding God, but Divinely He was convicting the weakness of them who hold Him. And this the Divine-uttering Evangelist John makes manifest to us,

thus writing,

Judas therefore having received the band and officers from the chief priests and Pharisees cometh thither

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with torches and lanterns and weapons; Jesus knowing all things that were coming upon Him, went forth and said unto them, Whom seek ye? they answered Him, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus saith unto them,

I

am. And Judas which betrayed Him was standing with them. When therefore He said unto them,

I

am, they went backward and fell to the

ground.

Hearest thou that He does not let them who have been gathered together by the traitor behave themselves proudly against His Glory? for He offered Himself saying, I

am,

but they unstrung by the voice alone,

went backward.

And that it was no work of their own strength to hold Him, but that in his season and in need He made death for us welcome, He hath proved saying,

As a robber came

ye forth with swords and staves to take Me? daily did I sit in the Temple teaching, and ye laid no hold on Me, but all this has been done that the Scriptures of the Prophets might

be fulfilled.

For what He hath of old foretold through the holy Prophets, this hath He fulfilled, abasing Himself unto emptiness Who is above all the creation,

and found in fashion as a man

Who is in the Form and Equality with the Father.

Why then dost thou, essaying to bring in privily the name of mixture, wrong in the ears of the more simple the marvel of the economy with flesh? for it does not befit thee bitterly and harshly to come forward saying, "Was God the Word

holden? did the nature of the Godhead undergo slaughter?" That of no accurate

. . . .

thou art saying such things, thou wilt know hence and that easily. We say that the holy Martyrs have been perfected, choosing to suffer all things in order that having

striven

the good strife, finished

their

course, kept the faith,

they might bind on them the crown of true relationship to Christ. If then any were to come forward and ask, When the bodies of the saints were torn by the steel or wasted by fire or again when they first became prisoners, were

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their souls holden along with their bodies? did they too become the work of fire and sword? albeit we say that they [the souls] were apart from their bodies, enduring nought of such contumelies in their own nature. Will they therefore (tell me) be for this reason imparticipate of the crowns, because they have not suffered the things of the body? But verily the word of truth does not put them apart from suffering, for they suffered the things of their own, not those of others' bodies.

Unlearned then is it to want to ask whether the nature of the Godhead have been betrayed along with the flesh, or whether It were holden in the meshes of the Jews or endured the slaughter also: but it is pious to conceive rather that the Word will surely and entirely make His own the sufferings that have befallen His own Flesh, but abode Impassible as God yet not external to His suffering Body

. But he involving in charges of absurdity the things so economically wrought, and again and again saying that the Nature of the Godhead ought not to be said by any to have undergone slaughter, unholily arrays the force of the Mystery about a man by himself, and says that he it is who was crucified and endured death for the life of the world. For I hear him saying in another exposition of his,

"This is he who was encircled in the thorny Crown, this he who saith,

My God, My God why forsookest Thou Me?

this he who endured a three days' death."

§5. Such things then doth he say, following his own aim, but WE will shew him a wiser and truer Emmanuel, the whole world's Saviour and Redeemer. For

the Word,

as we have full often said,

was made flesh,

and making His own, a Body which knew to suffer contumelies and death,

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He hath given it for us and, as the Divine-uttering Paul

saith,

endured the cross, despising the shame.

For was it

not shame and a sort of abashment to Him that hath a Nature All-Strong and Quickening and above suffering, to seem to be crucified out of human weakness and to come to death after the flesh? And verily the Same saith through the voice of Isaiah,

My Back I have given to

scourges, My Cheeks to blows, My Face turned I not away from the shame of spittings,

and again,

Therefore was I not confounded, but I set My Face as a firm rock and I know that I shall not be ashamed, for He is near that justifieth Me.

For as far as regards the impious multitudes of the Greeks and also of the Jews, the Mystery of Christ is reputed

a stumbling block

alike and

foolishness,

for they deride (miserable ones!) the Precious Cross; but the end of the weakness (as it seemed to them) resulted in might of glory most truly God-befitting. For through the Resurrection from the dead it has been testified that He is God and Son of God in truth, as superior to death and decay, and is worshipped by all together with Him Who begat Him.

And hear the sacred Scriptures proclaiming to us this very thing:

Thus saith the Lord, Sanctify Him That holdeth light His Soul, Him that is abhorred by the nations, the servants, the rulers: kings shall see Him and princes shall rise up and worship Him.

Confess (it said) that He is Holy by Nature as God, Who held cheaply His own Soul,

i. e., despised His own life (for He hath

laid it down for His sheep,

as Good Shepherd): Him Whom the nations vilely esteemed, servants and officers insulted with blows, while the multitudes of the Pharisees impiously outraged Him,

Him

shall kings see and rise up,

Him shall

princes worship,

as God, that is, who descended into emptiness, in order that suffering in the flesh, He might save all under Heaven. This is He Who for us was encircled with the Thorny Crown, this, not another, He Who as Man is crucified

and says,

My God My God why forsookest Thou Me?

yet who restrains as God the Light of the sun, and makes it night in mid-day that we should not confess Him Man,

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simply honoured with mere connection (according to thee) with the Word I mean That is out of God, but should believe rather that He is God, in likeness as we, and in servant's form, remembering Him Who saith by a Saint's

voice,

And I will clothe the Heavens with darkness, and I will make their covering as sackcloth. For He Who speaketh is at hand,

and what He of old hath as God foresignified would be, He in due season was fulfilling, crucified as Man. For the Heaven put on darkness, all but a mourning dress, the sun no longer giving the brightness of its rays to them who had durst outrage the Lord and God of all, hath foresignified the darkness which they should have in mind and heart. For the blessed David too sings somewhere of

them,

Let their eyes he darkened that they see not and bow down their back alway.

And the veil too of the Temple was rent, revealing now to those who believe on Him the holy of holies and shewing the most inward parts,

the first tabernacle

no longer

standing,

but

the way into the holy

now

made manifest,

that is into the holy of holies. For holy confessedly was the Law too, in that it was the furnisher

of righteousness, our guide too unto Christ: yet incomparably holier is the life in Christ esteemed, and more excellent and in better case the worship in spirit and in truth than that in shadows and types. Will not such achievements then be God-befitting and above the nature of man? hath not the saving Passion shamed the

waving

sword,

brought man again into Paradise? for Christ said to the robber who hung with Him,

Today shalt thou be with Me in Paradise:

beamed He not on

them that were in darkness,

uttering with authority,

Shew yourselves?

For He has emptied Hell as God, and loosed from their bonds those who were in it: and He it was Who of old crieth out to the most enduring Job,

Camest thou into the springs of the sea? walkedst thou in the tracks of the depth? are the gates of death open to thee in fear

[

of thee

did the doorkeepers of hell seeing thee tremble?

Wherefore then blushest thou not allotting things that are yet God-befitting to one as we and to a mere man?

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For that the Word of God Himself, taking servant's form, participate in flesh and blood, endured to give His own Body to death for our sakes and, being Impassible by Nature, suffered in the Flesh of His own will, the all-wise Paul will give us proof, writing,

Giving thanks unto the Father Which made us meet to be partakers of the lot of the saints in light, Who delivered us from the authority of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His Love, in Whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins, Who is the Image of the Invisible God, the firstborn of every creature; for in Him were created all things in Heaven and upon earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or lordships or principalities or authorities, all things were created through Him and unto Him, and He is before all things and in Him all things consist, and He is the Head of the body, the Church, Who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He might have the preeminence.

See now the Priest of His Mysteries said and that very clearly that the Very God the Word, through Whom are all things and in Whom are all things,

Who is the Image of the Invisible God;

He through Whom were brought into being both the things which are in Heaven and those on earth, the visible and invisible; He Who

is before all things, in Whom all things consist;

has been given as

Head

the Church,

and is Himself

the firstborn from the dead.

But (you will perhaps say) the Word out of God the Father is by Nature Life; how then or in what way might Life die? well: necessary and useful is your question. Therefore unto the force of the mystery is serviceably taken, that we conceive and say that the ever-living and Life-giving Word of God was made Flesh,

i. e., made His own a Body recipient of death, that Himself might be conceived to suffer, because His Very own Body suffered. For thus do we say that He became the

firstfruits of them that slept,

and

the firstborn from the dead:

for He is said to have been laid with us in a tomb through His own flesh, Who raiseth the dead, that we too might be co-raised with Him: for this w

ay did He inaugurate for us

and for this

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hath He humbled Himself, abasing Himself unto emptiness and unto manhood with us; albeit the Only-Begotten is God by Nature and beamed from God the Father.

But he thinks (it seems) that they who suppose that these things are so, and who deem aright, have advanced to the goal of the uttermost distraction; and everywhere alleging that we ought to confess the Word out of God the Father to be Impassible, he removes from Him and that utterly the mode of His Economy: and thinks it not meet either to think or say that He suffered for us, albeit the God-inspired Scripture says that He suffered in the Flesh, He both Impassible and Unembodied, because the Body suffered that is His own and united to Him. He says again thus,

"Therefore concerning our first-fruits, blessed Peter telling, and relating the exaltation by the Godhead of the nature that is seen, says,

This Jesus God raised up.

God did not

dio, He

raised up.

Hear, o Apolinarius, the words of Peter, hear with

Apolinarius, thou too Arius.

This Jesus,

he says,

God raised up,

the visible, him who was seen with the eyes, affixed to the wood, handled by the hands of Thomas, who cried to him,

Handle Me, for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see Me have.

And by these words the disciple persuaded, and by the handling of the crucified body persuaded of the resurrection, began to glorify the wonder-working God, Glory to Thee

, my Lord and my God: not addressing as God that which was handled, for not by handling is the Godhead discerned." And after other, "Of this that was handled was Peter too exclaiming,

This Jesus God raised up, being therefore by the Right Hand of God exalted.

God the Word had no need of an aiding right hand, o

Arius." §6. The Son raiseth up the dead and we say that He is superior to death, for we remember Him Who hath openly said, I

am the Resurrection and the Life:

yet when the

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Divine-uttering Peter announces to us saying,

This Jesus God raised up,

we believe that the Word made man is Jesus Himself. How then will one say that He has been raised by the Father and exalted by His Right Hand? for I think that this should be clearly set forth to those who cannot understand, in order that cutting off occasion of stumbling, we may set forth the way of truth straight and most unerring.

He gave therefore His own Body to death for a little while: for

by the grace of God,

as Paul saith,

He tasted death

for every man.

Then being Himself the Life-giving Right Hand and Power of God the Father, He rendered it superior to decay and death: and of this He gives us assurance saying to the Jews,

Destroy this Temple and in three days I will raise it up.

Understand therefore that Himself promises to rear His own Temple, albeit God the Father is said to raise it: for the Son is, as I said, the Life-giving Right Hand and Power of the Father. So that even though the Father be said to work the quickening of the Divine Temple, He hath wrought it through the Son, and though the Son again be seen to work it, yet not without the Father in the Spirit. For One is the Nature of Godhead, conceived of in three several Persons, and having Its motion and Operation, spiritual I mean and God-befitting, in regard to all things that are done.

The body therefore yielded to the laws of its own nature, and admitted the taste of death, the Word united thereto permitting it for profit's sake to suffer this: but was quickened by the Divine power of the Word Personally united to it. We conceive then of Whole

Emmanuel, which is interpreted, With us is God,

when we hear the Divine-uttering Peter say,

This Jesus God raised up;

and though thou speak of the visible and affixed to the wood, of "him who was handled by the hands of Thomas," no less do WE conceive of the Word out of God the Father Incarnate, and confess One and the Same Son. For being Invisible by Nature He hath become visible, because His too was the visible Body. And verily the Divine David sings to us,

God

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shall come manifestly, our God and shall not keep silence,

and moreover the blessed

Habaccuc,

God shall come from Teman and the Holy One from the deep-shaded mountain.

He being also Impalpable is said to have become palpable by reason of the Body united to Him. And Luke writes,

Since many essayed to set forth in order an account of those things which have been most surely believed among us, even as they handed them to us which from the beginning were eye-witnesses and ministers of the Word,

and to this the wise John

saith,

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked on and our hands handled, of the Word of Life, and the Life was manifested and we have seen and bear witness and declare to you the eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us.

Yet had He not become palpable and visible, as having for His own a Body which is subject to touch and sight, how had the all-wise disciples been made

eye-witnesses of the Word?

how had they both seen, and say that they handled

the Word of Life, Which was with the Father and was manifested to us?

This very Same therefore Which was both palpable and visible, Which was affixed to the wood, Thomas recognized and did rightly confess to be God and Lord: for he said immediately,

My Lord and my God.

Then said to him our Lord Jesus Christ,

Because thou hast seen Me, thou hast believed, blessed they which have not seen and believed.

Believed what, tell me? is it not that being God by Nature, He raised from the dead His own Temple? yet how could there be any doubt of this?

But this good man, all but foolishly ashamed of the words of the disciple, says not, 'He confessed Him that He is both Lord and God,

the Firstborn from the dead:

but rather he perverts to his own pleasure the force of the word and says that he "began to glorify the wonder-working God, saying,

My Lord and my God

and subjoins, "Not addressing as God that which was handled, for not by the touch is the Godhead discerned."

Blamest thou therefore (tell me) the disciple calling

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Christ Lord and God? though our argument has but just now shewn that the Only Begotten being by Nature God, Impalpable and Invisible, became palpable and visible. But when thou

sayest, "for not by the touch is the Godhead discerned," we again will say, Why dost thou, thrusting aside the Economy discourse of Godhead as though bare? and rushing full speed to forgetfulness that the Impalpable and Unembodied was both Incarnate and made Man, endurest not the God-inspired Scripture naming Him God, because that He had been both handled in flesh and likewise seen of the holy Apostles? But WE, my friend, together with blessed Thomas, crowning with the praises befitting Him, Him That was affixed to the wood, Him That was handled by hands and seen of human

eyes, say,

My Lord and my God.

But that though a man should say that the Word of God suffered in His own Flesh, he would not be without share in being praise-worthy nor in having chosen to think the truth (for even thus hath He abode Impassible): I will essay to shew again from what thyself hast written or saidst in Church. For thou deemest worthy of praise our holy Fathers, those (I mean) who were in their season gathered together at Nicea, as having formed full well for us an accurate and finished confession of faith: yet thou thinkest not what they do (whence should'st thou?) nor yet fixing thy mind on the doctrines of the truth, dost thou long to go straight, but haltest

on both thighs,

as it is written: foolishly blaming the lovers of right doctrine, yet holding for truth what liketh thyself, yea rather not even caring to abide in what thyself saidst, for I find thee saying of the holy fathers,

"For since if they had said, We believe in One God the Word, death would have been imputed to the Divine Nature, they admit a common term, Christ Jesus, that they may indicate both Him That died, and him that did not die." And he adds, "So that if a man should say, Such an one is dead, though the soul is immortal, yet

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since he said the word which iudicates the two natures, both the mortal body and the immortal soul, the expression is free from risk: for both are called man, both the body and the soul: thus it is therefore that that great band spake of Christ."

§7. That in naming Christ Jesus, they did not indicate two several sons, having a common name, Christ Jesus, but rather the Word out of God made Man, I think no one that deems aright will gainsay, and I think it superfluous for us to yet array many words on this matter besides what have been already said. Yet if thou be not persuaded by our words to think that though we say that the Word of God hath suffered in the Flesh for our sakes, we hold Him even thus Impassible as God, at least allow to thine own words that they appear to have been rightly framed. For just as he who said

man,

indicated the soul together with the body although it be of other nature than it; and even though such an one's body were said to be dead, the whole person would reasonably be held to have suffered this, albeit he possess a soul which is not recipient of death: so of Christ too the Saviour of us all. For since the Word out of God the Father (as we have repeatedly said) hath partaken of blood and flesh in like manner as we, and made His own the Body that is of the holy Virgin and has thus been called Son of man too

;

for this reason when His Flesh died, the plan of true union attributes the suffering to Him, yet knows that He hath remained apart from suffering because He is both God by Nature and Life. And verily the Divine-uttering Peter setting before us this teaching says of Him somewhere to them that believe on Him,

Whom having not seen ye love, on Whom, though now ye see Him. not, yet believing, ye exult with joy unutterable and glorified, receiving the fulfilment of your faith, the salvation of your souls, of which salvation the prophets searched out and examined into, who prophesied of the grace to

youward, searching what or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ Which was in them was signifying, when It testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should

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follow, unto whom it was revealed that not unto themselves but to us they were ministering the things which are now declared unto us through them that preached the Gospel unto us with the Holy Ghost sent down from Heaven: which things the Angels long to look into.

Hearest thou that the Spirit of Christ was in the holy Prophets too, and that they proclaimed beforehand

the

sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow?

Did they then proclaim to the world as though a mere man were suffering for us? and is this the mystery which through our holy Apostles and Evangelists hath been given in trust, and into these things does he say that

the Angels long to look?

yet how is not he to be utterly repudiated who essays to shut up the might of the mystery within the limits of the human nature alone? God the Word Himself, Who is in the Form of God the Father, hath

emptied Himself

taking

servant's form

and hath undergone birth in the flesh for our sakes, Himself hath suffered for us in His own Flesh, and He lived again as God, having emptied Hades and

said

to them that were in bonds, Come forth, and to them that

were

in darkness, Shew yourselves.

Why then essayest thou

to overturn the so dread and marvellous economy through which we have been both saved and have been brought within all good? for what we gained through it, thou wilt know and that very clearly, since blessed Paul hath thus

written,

And you that were sometime alienated and enemies n your mind in wicked works, yet now hath He reconciled in the body oj His flesh through death to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in His sight if so be ye endure in the Faith.

Therefore the faith profits them who will hold it unshaken; how it profits, the all-wise John

will assure us saying,

Who is he that overcometh the world but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God? This is He that came through water and blood, Jesus Christ, not in water only, but in water and blood, and the Spirit

is Truth

;

for three testify, the Spirit, the water and the Blood, and the

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Three are One. If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater, for this is the witness of God, because He hath witnessed concerning His Son: he that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself, he that believeth not God hath made him a liar, because he believed not the testimony which He hath testified regarding His Son.

And how God the Father hath testified to His Son, the Divine-uttering John the Baptist will declare saying.

And

I

knew Him not, but He That sent me to baptize with water, He said to me, Upon Whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending and remaining upon Him, This is He Which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost. And

I

saw and have testified that This is the Son of God.

Our Lord Jesus Christ therefore is witnessed to through the Father's Voice, that He is by Nature and in truth His Son, He is witnessed to no less through the water and the Blood and the Spirit. For by the holy water He purgeth away the sins of them that believe, He quickeneth through His own Blood and connecteth to God them on the earth: and since He is God by Nature He maketh also richly the grant of the Holy Ghost, pouring It forth as His own into the hearts of them who believe, and making them

partakers of the Divine Nature,

and crowning them with the hope of the good things to come.

We confess therefore One Son, Christ Jesus the Lord, that is, the Word of God made Man and Incarnate and Him crucified and raised from the dead and to come in due time in the Glory of God the Father with the holy Angels; through Him and with Him to God the Father be glory with the Holy Ghost for ever. Amen.

[A small selection of footnotes and marginalia, omitting

all biblical references, follows]

S. Cyril in his first Letter to the Monks comments thus on this text: "Then (tell me) how

is He who is forth of the holy virgin called God's

own Son?

for as the own of a man and so of each animal besides, is that which is born thereof by nature: thus God's

own

will be conceived and said to be that which is out of His Essence. How then has Christ been called God's

own Son,

who has also been

given by God the Father for the salvation and life of all? for

He was delivered because of our transgressions,

and Himself

bare the sins of many in His Body upon the Tree,

according to Prophet's voice. It is evident then, that the fact of the Union, of necessity brought forward, shews that He who is forth of the holy Virgin is God's

own Son.

Epp. p. 15 a b. see also de recta fide to the Princesses Arcadia and Marina p. 104 a.

This transposition is probably a manuscript-error, there is no trace of it in the same citation in

Glaph. 227 e, 403 b, de Ad. 408 a, de Recta fide G8 b,

in xii Prophetas 853 d.

...

. see exactly the same expression at the close of

serm. 2 in Mercator, "Si haereticus tibi ex persona ecclesiastica mortuum Deum tuum

exprobaverit," p. 69 fin. Bal. It is not clear whom Nestorius is addressing as "heretic" and as having called the Godhead

Lord of glory.

The learned but uncritical Jesuit, John Garnier (see Tillemont's remarks in notes 71, 73, 74, 91 on S. Cyril of Alexandria, t. xiv. 780, 781, 792 sq. ed. 2) supposes this to be a reply

(Marii Merc. opp. ii. pp. 29,30. Par. 1673) to S. Proclus' famous homily on the Incarnation

(Migne, Patrol. lxv. 679 sqq.), but I do not see any special mention of this point in S.

Proclus' Homily. One would naturally expect S. Cyril to be the person referred to, but besides that S. Cyril immediately after disclaims the expression, a List of references to S. Cyril's extant citations of 1

Cor. ii. 8 (generously furnished me by the Dean of Chichester) do not supply any passage likely to be referred to by

Nestorius. S. Cyril in his work against the Arians cites the text in proof that the Son is not less than the FATHER. "Making discourse of the princes of this world and the folly that is in them, he says,

For had they known they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

Hence if the SON Who endured the cross for our sakes

Lord of glory,

how is He not God by Nature ? how a creature or made, Who is even hymned by the

Seraphin? for they say that

full is the heaven and the earth of His Glory,

and call Him

Lord of

Sabaoth: for it is clear that of Him are they saying this if He is

Lord of glory,

as Paul

saith." Thes. cap. 32 p. 272 a. Commenting on the whole passage (1 Cor. ii. 6-8) in reference to Nestorian errors, S. Cyril says, "If the

mystery of Christ

God's wisdom,

and. it is preached to the world and if He is not truly God according to what somehow pleases some to imagine, and our faith is to Himward ; how is the

mystery

wise if it bear away them on the earth from the true knowledge of God and render the world worshipper of a man? But it is not so, the

mystery

IS wise for it brings to God them that have strayed. Christ therefore is

God, He that has been crucified is rightly called

Lord of glory.

de recta fide to the princesses, p. 62 a. "Therefore the blessed Paul himself somewhere says of the rulers of this world,

For had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

He knows then that the Crucified is

Lord of glory."

de recta fide to the Empresses, § 31 p. 168 b c.

See also S. Cyril's commentary on these verses of S. John, book 4 beg. pp 383

sqq. O.T.

This is given also by Mercator, among his collection of extracts made by

S.Cyril, with the title,

Also in the sixth quire of the same, on Judas, against

the heretics,

p. 116 Bal. Mercator's extract is much ampler, comprising as well the heading of § 7 of book 4 (above p. 153) and a little more.

The one Greek MS now extant has

καὶ μεμένηκεν ὁ θεὸς

the Roman Editors conjecture

εἰ μεμένηκε

, but Mercator translates,

Is therefore the Word of

God, Who has no participation in the slaughter of His flesh, capable of being apprehended and led to slaughter by the Jews?

7. "

How therefore is Life said to die ? by suffering death in Its own flesh, in order that It may be shewn to be life by quickening it again. For come if in regard even to our own selves the mode of death be searched into, no one who deems aright would say that souls perish along with the bodies that are of earth. I suppose that no living person would

hesitate as to this. Yet is what happens called the death of man. Thus you will conceive of as to Emmanuel too. For the Word was in him that is of a woman as in His own Body, and He gave it to death in due time, Himself suffering nought in His proper Nature." Letter 1 to the Monks,

Epp. p. 17 d e.

8. Serm. 2 p. 64. Bal. see above p. 69.

The words

Glory to Thee,

seem to be a gloss, they are not in the Latin translation of

Nestorius' Homily 2. p. 58 ed. Baluz., nor does S. Cyril cite them in his comment a little below, when citing this portion of

Nestorius' words.

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