Opuscula Theologica et Polemica 1 part 4/12

for through the conjunction in the expression, he plainly proclaimed it as divine and manly, that is, human;

wherefore he did not name it by number [as one], even though, by signifying in a singular manner the union of the natural operations, he taught this very union;

which [union] does not harm the natural difference of these [operations];

just as neither does the indivisible union of the essences themselves [harm the difference of the essences];

since, according to those who say, 'if he had one operation, and this a theandric one' —

how will the one natural operation, [set] against two [natures], be divided?

and by what principle will the one and same operation both constitute and distinguish the different essences,

making each of the two [natures], with respect to things of the same kind, have essential invariability, and again, with respect to things of a different kind, essential difference?

And I pass over saying how it [this single 'theandric' operation] has fallen away from the natural kinship both with the Father and with us, since neither he entirely, nor we, possess an innate and essential 'theandric' operation.

But if, again, it is hypostatic, besides being a novel opinion —

for who is it that says an operation exists hypostatically?

And thus such a statement declares him to be alien from the Father in respect of operation, if indeed he has, apart from the Father, an operation that is hypostatic and not natural.

For it is by the hypostatic properties that the Logos plainly possesses his difference in relation to him [the Father].

And again, the kindred single operation, demonstrated through both [natures], according to the ever-memorable Cyril, [is spoken of] not for the abolition of the essential difference of the natural operations —

[the difference] of those [natures] out of which and in which the one and only Christ, who is God, exists —

but was spoken by the teacher for the establishing of the utmost union of these [natures].

For in order that he might not seem to be a bare God, nor again a mere man;

nor as God operating incorporeally by himself alone, nor as man by himself alone performing what accords with [his own] gnome;

but [that he might be shown to be] God incarnate and one who truly became man for our sake, operating, as one and the same, both divinely and humanly at once — he set forth [the teaching] that the Savior is found operative not by word alone, nor by commands befitting God alone, in raising up the dead and healing every disease and every infirmity;

but was, as it were, eager to take his holy flesh as a kind of fellow-worker especially for this very purpose;

doing this, on the one hand, as God, by his all-effective command;

and, on the other hand, again giving life also by the touch of the holy flesh united to him according to hypostasis, so that he might show that this [flesh] too is able to give life through his essential operation, to which properly belong the touch, the voice, and such things.

Then, having shown the natural operations of him, of Christ who is God and is composed of both [natures], to be perfectly preserved —

that of his divinity, through the all-effective command, and that of his humanity, through the touch —

he set these forth as united throughout by their mutual connaturality and interpenetration;

so that, on account of the union of the Logos himself and his all-holy flesh, the operation is shown to be one —

not naturally [one], nor hypostatically [one];

for the teacher has said no such thing.

but kindred with respect to its parts;

through which, as has been said, it was displayed both according to an all-working command and according to the touch of a hand,

and he again defines the union itself:

on the one hand, by saying "an all-working command and touch";

and on the other hand, by saying "one and kindred";

through which he nobly dismisses every conflation and division of the mystery concerning Christ;

But those who do not take it in this way, but understand the kindred operation as one single operation of the Word and the flesh, dogmatize the consubstantiation of Eutyches and Apollinarius,

so that the wicked pair — division, I say, and confusion — might have no infiltration against the truth.

According to this expression, then, and the other singular expressions of the holy Fathers, should they be found, the pious sense must be understood;

and let us in no way take these as contradicting the dual expressions of the saints;

but let us embrace both — these and those — with soul and mouth, most joyfully, and confess them in orthodox fashion;

and through the expressions that in utterance seem in some way contrary, let us wisely put to rout those who are contrary in understanding — equally to themselves, to one another, and to the truth;

and let us manfully drive them out of our fold, that is, the catholic and apostolic Church of God;

and let us grant no passage whatsoever against the orthodox faith to those who, like robbers, contrive to remove the boundaries set by the Fathers, by casting away any of the pious weapons and doctrines through which the overthrow and destruction of those heretics naturally comes about.

Yet one must also know this: that with regard to the natures and the natural operations, we find, alongside the dual expressions of the holy Fathers, singular ones as well;

such as, "the one incarnate nature of God the Word," and "the theandric operation" — both the kindred one and the one displayed through both natures;

but with regard to the natural wills, it is not possible, so far as I know, to find any singular expression whatsoever, but only the dual significations found in pronouns and number.

How then, and by what reasoning — should we undertake to examine the matter at all — must one say that there is one will or two in the case of Christ God, seeing that the legislation and teaching of the Fathers enjoins us to confess and profess two natural wills concerning him, just as also the natures themselves and their natural operations, to the point of knowing their difference?

These things having now been said by me digressively to your God-honored holiness, I beseech you to grant me, for whatever in them has been said unfittingly, or not rightly understood, both pardon and correction together, in the good and loving affection and imitation of paternal compassion;

and commend me to Christ God, who together with the Father and the Holy Spirit is glorified unto the ages of ages.

"It is absurd," he says, "for the one will to be divided (for this is what the natural kinship compels), the one half being given to the one nature, and the other to the remaining nature;"

"and thus, they claim, Christ is alienated from both God and us, on the ground that neither has a composite will."

That the Fathers established as dogma both the difference and the union, against confusion, and against the division that ranks equally with it in error.

There is a [fear] that is real and subsistent; but in our case there is also the irrational one, on account of which God became man, that he might save man anew,

having freed from this those who, through fear of death, were throughout their whole life held liable to bondage —

that is, as many as, fearing pain, procured for themselves pleasure, the mother of pain,

the promoter and procuress of death.

You yourself, O God-honored and all-blessed Father, true to your name, possessing along with courage the most sacred victory over the enemies who war, whether secretly or openly, against the holy catholic and apostolic Church of God —

and from this it is clear that you delight in the Lord himself as much as anyone else; how then, and in what way, do you deign to attach this victory — even in mere word, much less to bring it forward through your precious and blessed letters — to one who is feeble and cowardly, and who has, up to now, been taught only to move the practical powers of the mind, or the reasonings that are, as it were, like fingers of the hands with respect to the soul, and by no means at all taught to move them unto the battle-array of God and his holy war waged on his behalf, and thereby nobly to rout those who exalt themselves in words and doctrines against the Lord Almighty?

and to drive them out of the good land, which is our Lord and God himself, and the orthodox faith, which is the very same thing;

the truly firm seat and foundation of pious doctrines;

and the ever-flowing fruitfulness and very nature of the virtues.

But this you have done in imitation of Christ:

so that — toward me, who stand apart from him in gnomic inclination, and who, as though by settled purpose, inhabit a far country of wickedness distant from him, and who through my own actions nourish the passions of dishonor like swine — having displayed a good and loving self-emptying, and having shown, by the greatness of your condescension, the power of the divine excellences within you, you might rouse me to a longing for it, and steel me unswervingly toward a certain holy and blessed zeal — me, who to the extent of my power have cast off the burden of sloth and negligence weighing upon me far more heavily than upon all others;

and having greatly admired you, O blessed one, for the wise providence and forethought you have shown concerning me, the poor one, I have earnestly implored our Lord and God with tears — though I am indeed a very great sinner — that the preservation of you, my good and virtuous shepherd and father, for many more years and in ever more divine achievements, be granted to me and to all,

so that, having you especially now — you whose prediction concerning what is, by nature, truly the truth, the truth manifest in the outcome of events has now clearly confirmed —

and tribulation, such as has not occurred even once since the foundation of the world, nor ever shall occur, has overtaken everyone everywhere on account of their sins —

strengthening and invigorating us with the all-strong staff of God-persuading prayers, and guiding and enlightening us well with the all-holy pipe of God-wise teaching, and settling us through practice in the meadow of the ever-living state of the virtues;

and nourishing us through knowledge, beside the water of rest of the ever-gushing supply of sacred streams found in your doctrines;

and safely preserving us unto a fortified place and lofty sheepfold — the catholic Church, and the Lord who, by his own life-giving blood, according to his will, betrothed her to himself — may we be freed from the incursion of our adversaries,

who, having seized upon a fitting occasion in the disturbance and confusion of everything, contrive to confound the great and ineffable mystery of the saving dispensation of Christ God for all — a mystery which by nature encompasses all ages and times, and those who exist within ages and time;

inasmuch as the holy flesh from us — ensouled intellectually and rationally, assumed by him according to the good pleasure of the Father and the cooperation of the Holy Spirit, and united to him according to one and the same hypostasis — did not, after the union, retain the properties belonging to it by nature, except sin alone;

or rather, as though he who is himself the incarnate Word, who for our sake became man, did not completely preserve, in a manner like unto us, the things that essentially characterize our nature,

but had rather transformed these into his own divine nature;

and thereby had shown a deficiency in his own divinity, a divinity in need of some addition toward completeness according to essence;

or had caused them to pass altogether into non-existence, as though not very good, and had utterly effaced the work of his own creation, by not making them, and uniting them to himself according to hypostasis, according to any rational principle or wisdom;

since how is it that what came into being by the Word and by Wisdom is not preserved, indissolubly, in the Word and Wisdom itself, according to union,

and is it not confessed to be so after the union?

And for what reason, but that, through the confession that he who is by nature God became man, it might in truth be believed?

Or perhaps he did not even from the beginning assume, together with the nature, the very things that naturally belong to that nature,

but took some soulless and irrational flesh, in no way from us or consubstantial with us — or did not even take it, but instead brought down flesh already co-essentiated with himself from above and from the beginning, and united it to himself;

and made a mere phantasm of the dispensation on our behalf and toward us, having approached us in a human form, but not having truly consorted with human nature — in order that he might save the whole race from the ancient transgression, and free it from the condemnation incurred on account of it.

For these things, and more besides, are what is held by as many as do not confess, fully and in orthodox fashion, according to the holy Fathers, that the natural properties in Christ God are preserved, apart from sin, just as the natures themselves are preserved;

For neither do we behold the divine and uncreated nature as non-existent, or without will, or without operation;

nor indeed do we acknowledge the created essence, like unto us and human, as non-existent, or without will, or without operation.

And if we know that neither of these — I mean the divine nature and the human nature — is bereft of natural existence, natural act of willing, and natural operation, and if the one and only Christ and Son is, in truth, the hypostasis composed of these, and existing and subsisting in these, then how, since he is himself by nature properly God, and by nature properly man, did he not also possess, by nature and properly, both a divine will and operation, and a human will and operation — being deficient in neither of these according to nature? It was through these that, verifying the names by the realities, and again confirming the realities by these names, he was manifestly known to be one and the same, having, willing, and operating the divine and human things according to nature, and by this being believed to be that out of which, and in which, and which very things, he subsisted.

Since, if the natural will and the essential operation of both the divine and the human essence be done away with — essences out of which he who exists and preserves them also according to one hypostasis subsists — how will he be God, or man?

And how will he be shown to exist, according to essence, as this or that, if he does not preserve, without deficiency, the particularity of each nature, apart from all sin?

For that which departs from what is according to nature — even should it come to exist outside the essence — has no existence whatsoever;

nor is there any position or reality of it at all.

And we must in no way diminish, or wholly deny, any of these on the pretext, forsooth, of the divine union according to hypostasis;

knowing that the union according to hypostasis in no way harms the natural properties, just as it does not harm the natures themselves,

even though it brings these together into one through itself, according to the one hypostasis,

in no way removing their existing as two according to the principle of nature;

just as, then — I mean these very natural properties of which I speak — the union, while again wholly uniting them through their mutual coalescence with one another, and permitting neither to be contemplated at all apart from the other, or outside the communion of the one with the other, in accordance with the ever-memorable Leo, pope of the Romans, nevertheless does not obscure their essential and natural difference in the least, but preserves it completely;

for it is preserved in the very preserving of the difference, and maintained in the very maintaining of it.

For clearly there is a union of things only for so long as their natural difference is preserved;

since, once this ceases, that union too ceases altogether, having been completely obliterated by confusion.

Since this union, then — I mean the union — does not harm the things united, nor their difference, but only fittingly unifies, by the name, the things pertaining to it, the things that differ according to nature are always and in every way preserved in it without diminishment and completely, having suffered no alteration or confusion whatsoever —

not in the essences themselves, not in the wills, not in the operations, not in any other natural property.

How then can some people put forward this as a cloak for their own — I know not how to say it reverently — conceit of wisdom?

and they say that the incarnate Logos is by nature without will, and without operation in that which is according to us, that is, the human element;

inasmuch as the essence assumed from us in him is properly soulless and irrational.

For that which is without operation is plainly without motion and without soul;

and that which has no rational act of willing is clearly irrational and without mind.

And if the incarnate Logos existed by nature without these things in that which is according to us, how will it be believed that he also became man?

And how, rather, will he not be shown thereby to have been changed in his divine nature, and to have fallen involuntarily under the passions of the flesh?

For by the abolition of these natural properties, Arius and Apollinarius made just such an assault against him.

For the one declared him soulless, the other irrational — which is to say, without operation and without will — and, having thus dogmatized, blasphemously called him in himself a creature and a thing made.

For each of them said that the Only-Begotten was passible by nature of the Godhead, but not by nature of the flesh;

though Apollinarius, indulging still further in impiety, even declared a complete transformation into flesh, by way of a lapse and mutation of his own Godhead.

We, then, being rightly devout, must reject such a confession, and hold fast the teaching of the holy Fathers;

and, in accordance with them, confess two natural wills and essential operations in the same one Christ.

For if we should say there is one will and one operation in him, then either he is not by nature also man, but God alone;

or he is by nature man alone, and not God;

or we shall plainly be dogmatizing that he is neither man nor God.

For instance, if we should say the will is natural, it is altogether either divine or human;

and if divine, the Logos will, by nature, will the divine things according to it;

showing himself thereby to be by nature God alone, and a co-willer with his own begetter, and not man;

for it is not in the nature of things that what is human by nature should be characterized through what is divine by nature;

just as neither can what is divine according to essence be known through what is human according to essence.

And this same conclusion will follow, even if we should say the will is human by nature.

But if it is hypostatic, it will be characteristic of his hypostasis alone;

and it could never according to it be shared in common with the Father and with us;

for by hypostasis it is set apart and separated from the two extremes.

And the same can be said again concerning the operations.

For these singular expressions were piously proclaimed by them on account of the union, and the thorough mutual connaturality of the natural operations with one another;

just as the dyadic expressions, too, were proclaimed on account of the essential and natural difference of these operations.

For 'theandric' is a comprehensive term embracing at once the divine and the human operation.

For the teacher, having devised a fitting term — one which, as I said, comprehends both in its very utterance — and having pronounced this single term, thereby indicated periphrastically the twofold operation belonging to the nature of the twofold one.

For since he had earlier said, 'Not having done the divine things merely as God' — because he was not a naked God;

but having, by nature, done the divine things;

yet through the flesh, which is united to him according to hypostasis;

and not having done the human things merely as man — because he was not a mere man;

but having, naturally, done the human things;

yet by divine authority, and not being led to act by any necessity and natural compulsion such as ours — he interwove into one the divine and the human operation of the same Christ according to nature;

so that neither exists apart from the other, but they are known connaturally in one another and through one another, on account of the indissoluble union;

and, having comprehended both in a single term, he proclaimed it periphrastically.

So that, by saying that he 'did both the divine and the human things,'

even though not merely as God, nor indeed merely as man;

because, as I said, he was neither a naked God nor a mere man;

yet that he truly did them — he might confirm the essential difference of the natural operations;

while by comprehending these and, through the 'theandric operation,' expressing them concisely with a fitting term, he might teach the indissoluble union of these.

And the 'one and kindred operation shown through both,' taught by the wise Cyril, likewise holds to the very great intent of this great Father.

For he too, through this expression, teaches the connaturality and union of the natural operations.

For this all-praised man, wishing to show that the flesh is God, and that the essential operation according to it became divine through the union with the Logos who is God by nature, and that it worked things beyond man, without departing from that which it was by nature;

just as the Logos himself, by the assumption of this flesh, willingly became man for our sake, operating the things according to man;

though being by nature God, he declares that this one does not heal and give life by the all-powerful command alone, as though he were a naked God;

but hastens to take his own holy flesh as, so to speak, a fellow-worker especially for this very purpose;

and to give life and to heal through it, and through the touch and the voice pertaining to it;

so that he might show this flesh to be able to give life, because it had come, in the union, to be joined to him;

and that it properly is the flesh of him who by nature gives life to the whole universe, and not the flesh of another;

yet again kindred, with respect to the two parts;

as being the very same operation, both in the all-powerful command and in the touch of the holy flesh;

for through both, as God, the Logos clearly displayed this operation;

showing, by giving life also through it, that it too had become altogether life-giving;

just as fire, too, burning through iron, by its union with it renders the iron capable of burning;

so that, on this account, the burning no longer belongs to the fire by nature alone, but also to the iron itself, on account of the union;

so too the divine operation of the Logos in the wonders belongs not to him alone by reason of nature, but also to the holy flesh itself, on account of its union with him according to hypostasis;

for he took this as his own fellow-worker in the divine things — as the teacher says — just as the soul, too, takes its own body, for the fulfillment of its proper works.

This one and kindred operation, then, shown through both, indicates the union of the operations according to nature;

while the difference of genus and the duality of these operations — just as the 'theandric operation,' too — properly signifies of itself, by being referred to both of the parts, namely those out of which and in which the one and only incarnate Logos was known;

and belongs to both, as having been shown through both — both the all-powerful command and the touch of the holy flesh.

But one need not be altogether perplexed at the term 'kindred';

for 'kindred' has been used by the holy Fathers both of things of the same essence and of things of different essence;

and the Theologian, the great Gregory, bears witness to this, speaking thus of the soul in his Funeral Oration for his brother Caesarius: 'And a little later, having received back also the kindred flesh, with which it had philosophized together concerning the things beyond.'

Here the teacher has called the flesh 'kindred' to the soul on account of the union, not the nature.

Teaching concerning the only-begotten Son, he says:

'And he who is borne witness to by the kindred Spirit.'

Here he has spoken of 'kindred' on account of the nature, not the union.

But Cyril himself, the wise, also applies the term 'kindred' without strict precision to things divided in essence and hypostasis.

And he says as follows, commenting on the evangelist John, concerning the healing effected in divine baptism: 'since it stands in a certain kinship toward both of the things declared.'

For by the Spirit he sanctifies the spirit of man;

and by water, in turn, the body. But what, and what kind of, kinship is there between the Holy Spirit and water, in essence or hypostasis, with our spirit and body?

even though this kinship comes to us and to the parts of which we are composed especially according to grace, through sacred regeneration.

But again, the singular number itself too, as is evident to all, is used by the saints—in respect of each of the kinds subject to declension, both among things of the same essence and things of different essence—with a view solely to that which pertains to the union; as in the sayings, 'One out of both,' and 'through one, both'; and, 'One hypostasis and one nature of God the Word incarnate.'

And, 'For even if the combination of both is one, yet not by nature, but by conjunction.'

And again, concerning things of the same essence, as in, 'And he was, and he was, but there was one.'

Light and light, and light, but one light.

And, 'One God, and one nature, the highest,' says Gregory the Theologian.

One must not, therefore, take the singular expressions of the saints, or those spoken as kindred on account of the union, altogether for the overthrow of the dual expressions, or those of a different kind spoken by them on account of the difference;

nor again, take these dual expressions against those singular ones.

For he who understands them in this way, and does not embrace both equally and fittingly—adapting the one set to the union, and the other to the natural difference—

falls, as is likely, altogether either into division or into confusion;

or rather, to speak properly, he clothes himself with error, and thrusts himself away from the true communion and confession of the holy Fathers.

For even if the flesh has become one with the Word according to hypostasis, and by the union has been enriched with his operation,

yet it by no means fell away from being created according to essence, nor did it suffer any departure whatsoever from the natural and blameless passions.

And if this is properly so, as indeed it is, it evidently possessed both its very nature and its natural operation as different in relation to the Word.

The incarnate Word himself had, as man,

for since he shared in blood and flesh in a manner similar to us, the same one had two natural operations, just as also two natures;

the divine and paternal, and the human according to us;

through which it was believed that the same one was both God and man.

For of whatever natures he had the natural operations, of these, clearly, he had also the natures.

For as God, through both voice and the touch of the holy flesh, he was shown, according to nature, to be healing and life-giving;

so again, being also man, the same one was known essentially through that same touch and hand, girding himself with a towel and washing the feet of the disciples;

and breaking the loaves, and distributing them to them;

and dipping the morsel into the dish;

and again, through his voice, disclosing the grief present in him: 'My soul is sorrowful even unto death.'

And, 'Now is my soul troubled.'

And, 'So could you not watch with me one hour?'

and all such things—in no way setting aside that which by nature belongs to each of the two natures out of which, and in which, he consists;

but rather confirming the natures by their natural operations.

But that it may also be shown through Cyril the wise, that the flesh did not have, by nature, one operation with the Word—just as it did not have one nature—even though it became kindred to him by being deified through the union, let us hear what he sets forth, interpreting the Gospel according to Matthew, in the second book of the Confession.

Is it the power of humanity that dissolves Satan and puts Beelzebul to shame?

For if anyone wishes, let him come forward and teach you what it is that prevents authority over unclean spirits from lying open to all who wish to exercise it.

Behold—if this is what the nature of the flesh effects:

for we are all in flesh, and the principle of humanity is one for all;

yet to prevail over spirits is a work neither specifically of flesh, nor indeed of humanity, since not all possess this power;

but rather the achievement is seen to belong to operation, through the Spirit.

Therefore the Father has truly said, insofar as Christ is understood as flesh and man, that the power against demons was a work of the Spirit, and not of the flesh, that is, of humanity.

For the body of the Lord is confessedly holy, and possesses power against every disease;

but it was, and is, holy, not because it is simply understood as flesh, existing solely according to its own principles, but because it is the temple of God the Word who dwells in it, sanctifying his own flesh through his own Spirit.

So that, as this divine man says, in truth it is not a natural operation of flesh, nor a power of humanity, that dissolves Satan;

nor does the nature of flesh effect this;

since, were it so, all men also, being in flesh, and one according to the principle of humanity, would, upon choosing to act, likewise possess power over spirits.

Having thus clearly taught these things, he has made his point, and become the interpreter of his own words: that the flesh is holy and life-giving, possessing power against every disease, by the Word's indwelling—which is to be united according to one hypostasis—and not by existing as flesh, subsisting solely according to its own principles.

Let us, therefore, also ourselves guard, according to the guidance of the saints, the principle of difference unimpaired—preserving the very natures themselves, and the things belonging to them essentially, even after the union;

and let us guard the mode of the economy as wholly indivisible, a mode which in unified fashion preserves the utmost coalescence of the things united;

and let us drive out from ourselves all division and confusion.