Institutes & Conferences 3

Having some time ago completed the little books of my spiritual Conferences, notable more for their sense than for their language, since my unskilled speech was unequal to the lofty thought of those holy men, I had resolved, and had all but determined, after that shame at the ignorance I had laid bare, so to establish myself in the harbour of silence that, as far as in me lay, I might excuse the boldness of my speech by the modesty of keeping still.

But you have overcome my purpose and resolve by your praiseworthy zeal and your most imperious affection, my Leo — you who are my venerable and revered love, the glory of the Roman Church and of the divine ministry — drawing me forth from that retreat of premeditated silence into public and dread judgement, and compelling me, still blushing over things past, to undertake new labours; and though I have proved unequal even to lesser matters, by you I am forced to be equal to greater ones. For not even in those little works, in which by the humble offering of my slender talent I made sacrifice to God, would I have attempted to set anything in motion or to presume, had I not been drawn on by episcopal command. And so through you the dignity of my speech and pen has grown.

For we who before, at your bidding, spoke of the Lord's disciplines, are now required by you to speak of the very Incarnation of the Lord and of His majesty. Thus we who first were led into the holy places of the temple as though by a priestly hand, now under your guidance and with your support penetrate, as it were, into the Holy of Holies.

A great honour, but a perilous undertaking, for the palm of the sacred sanctuary and of the divine reward cannot be won unless the enemy be overcome. You bid me, then, and command me to join feeble hands against a recent heresy and a new foe of the faith, and to stand with open mouth, as they say, against the deadly jaws of the pestilent serpent — namely, that against this dragon rising up against the churches of God with his winding coils, the prophetic power and the divine strength of the Gospel word may, through me as though an enchanter, break him asunder. I obey your entreaty, I obey your command. For I would rather trust you than myself concerning myself, especially because the love of Jesus Christ my Lord enjoins this upon me together with you — He who commands this very thing even in you.

It remains that you ask the accomplishment of the task you have imposed from Him through whom you imposed it. For now more is at stake in your cause than in mine; it is your judgement rather than my duty that is put to the test. As for me, whether I am equal to your command or not, the very principle of obedience and humility to some degree excuses me — save that there is more merit in my compliance if there is less in my capacity. For we easily satisfy anyone's command out of abundance; but great and admirable is the duty of him who has even in his desire what he has not in his powers. This matter, therefore, is yours; the business is yours; it is the work of your honour.

Pray and beseech that my lack of skill may not endanger your choice; and that, if I fail to answer to so great an expectation, then — even though I obey rightly through the indulgence granted to obedience — you may not seem to have commanded ill through an unconsidered judgement. The fables of the poets relate that the Hydra, when once its heads were cut off, was reborn in yet greater number by its own losses.

They grew through its very losses, so that by a new and unheard-of marvel — the monster being multiplied by its own deaths — loss became a kind of gain: for whatever the cutting iron severed, its prodigious fecundity doubled entirely; until the diligent assailant of that severing, toiling and struggling, his strength baffled so many times by ineffectual labour, armed the fortitude of the war with the art of counsel, and applying fire, as they tell, cut through the manifold offspring of the monstrous body with a red-hot sword; and thus, its marrow scorched within, when he had burned away the rebellious veins of that wicked fecundity, at last the monstrous breeding ceased. So then even the heresies in the churches bear a likeness to the Hydra which the poets' inventions feigned.

For these too hiss against us with deadly tongues, and these too cast forth a lethal venom, and these too, their heads cut off, are reborn. But since medicine ought not to cease when the disease rises again, and the more grievous the sickness, the more urgent should be the cure, the Lord our God is able to bring to pass in the wars of the churches, as truth, that which the falsehood of the heathen feigned about the death of that Hydra: that the fiery sword of the Holy Spirit may so burn away utterly all the marrow of that pernicious brood in extinguishing the new heresy, that at last the prodigious fecundity, its veins dying, may cease to bring forth. For these are not new shoots of monstrous seed in the churches.

Always has the harvest of the Lord's field endured these burrs and thorns, and the persistent seed of the choking tares has sprung up within it. Hence came the Ebionites, hence the Sabellians, hence the Arians, hence too the Eunomians and Macedonians, hence the Photinians and the Apollinarians, and the rest of the brambles of the churches and the caltrops that choke the good crop have sprouted forth. Of these the first, Ebion, while he asserted the Lord's Incarnation too strongly, stripped it of its conjunction with divinity. And after him Sabellius, his schism bursting forth from the opposite error of the earlier heresy, while he contended that there is no distinction in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, so far as in him lay confounded the sacred and ineffable Trinity in blasphemous confusion.

Next there followed him the impiety of Arian perversity, which, lest it should seem to confound the sacred Persons, declared that in the Trinity the substances are diverse and unlike. Eunomius, however, after him indeed, but of much the same depravity, though he asserted the divine Trinity to be like itself, nevertheless contended that it was diverse from itself, admitting likeness but excluding equality. Macedonius too, blaspheming with irremediable impiety against the Holy Spirit, though he called the Father and the Son of the same substance, yet by calling the Holy Spirit a creature was guilty of assailing the whole Godhead; for nothing can be injured in the Trinity without injury to the whole Trinity.

Photinus, again, although he called Jesus who was born of the Virgin God, yet wrongly feigned that the beginning of the Godhead coincided with the beginning of the man. And Apollinaris, understanding without due consideration that the man was united to God, wrongly believed that He did not possess a human soul — for it is no lesser error to ascribe to the Lord Jesus Christ things not His own than to take away things that are His own. For whatever is said of Him otherwise than as it is, even if it seem an honour, is an injury. Thus each of them, generating one heresy out of the diversity of another, held opinions all diverse from one another, yet all alike opposed to the faith.

Recently too, that is, in our own days, we have beheld a venomous heresy arise from the greatest city of the Belgae, of certain error but uncertain name; for since it rose up with a fresh head out of the ancient stock of the Ebionites, it is quite doubtful whether it ought to be called ancient or recent. For it was new in its champions, but old in its errors.

For blaspheming that our Lord Jesus Christ was born a mere man, it asserted that His subsequent attainment to the honour and power of God was of human merit, not of divine nature; and that thereby He did not possess Godhead itself always by the property of a divinity united to Him, but afterwards earned it as a reward for His labour and Passion — since indeed it blasphemously held that our Lord and Saviour was not born God, but assumed by God. This heresy is akin to that one which has now arisen, and is, as it were, its sister and blood-relation; and being agreeable both to the Ebionites and to these recent men, it was indeed midway in time between the two, yet joined to both in perversity.

Although there are some other points of it similar to those we have already mentioned, it would be tedious to recount them all. For we have now taken up our pen not to record things past, but to refute what is new.

This one thing indeed we judge must not be passed over, which was peculiar and proper to that aforesaid heresy that had descended from the Pelagian error: that certain men, saying that the mere man Jesus Christ had lived without any taint of sin, went so far as to assert that men, if they will, can be without sin. For they thought it followed that, if the mere man Jesus Christ had been without sin, all men too could be without the help of God — whatever that mere man had been able to be without the fellowship of God; and thus they made no distinction at all between every man and our Lord Jesus Christ, since indeed the same man might, by his own effort and diligence, merit that which Christ had merited by His zeal and toil.

Whereby it came about that, breaking forth into a still greater and more monstrous madness, they said that our Lord Jesus Christ came into this world not to bestow redemption upon the human race, but to furnish examples of good deeds — namely, that men, following His teaching, while they advanced along the same path of virtue, might attain to the same rewards of the virtues: thus emptying, so far as in them lay, all the gift of the sacred Advent, all the grace of the divine redemption, since they said that men could obtain by living what God had bestowed for man's salvation by dying.

They added too that our Lord and Saviour was made Christ after baptism, and God after the resurrection, assigning the one to the mystery of the anointing, the other to the merit of the Passion. Hence the author of this new — no, not new — heresy now perceives that he who contends that our Lord and Saviour was born a mere man is saying exactly what the Pelagianists said before, and that it is a consequence of his error that he who asserts that the mere man Jesus Christ lived without sin also blasphemously holds that all men can of themselves be without sin, and that he says the Lord's redemption was not even necessary as an example to him, since men can, by their own effort alone, as they say, arrive at the heavenly kingdom.

Nor is there any doubt of this, for the fact itself declares it plainly. For hence it is that by his intercessions he fosters the complaints of the Pelagianists, and by his writings upholds their cause; that he subtly — or, to speak more truly, craftily — patronizes them, and by a wicked affection lends his suffrage to a wickedness akin to his own, knowing full well that he is of the same mind, of the same spirit, and therefore grieving that a heresy kindred to himself has been cut off from the Church — a heresy that he knows to be joined to himself precisely in perversity.

But nevertheless, since those who had descended from this stock of pestilent thorns have now by divine aid and mercy been healed, the Lord our God must even now be entreated that, since that former heresy and this new one are in certain respects agreeable to one another, He may grant to like beginnings of evils a like good outcome.

For Leporius, then a monk, now a presbyter, who, descending as we said above from the teaching, or rather the depravity, of Pelagius, was in Gaul among the first or among the chief champions of the aforesaid heresy, being admonished by us and amended by God, so nobly condemned the ill-conceived persuasion that his correction is well-nigh no less to be admired than the untouched faith of many; for it is the first thing not to fall into error at all, and the second to renounce it well.

He therefore, returning to himself, not only in Africa, where he then was and now is, confessed both his error with grief and without shame, but also sent to nearly all the cities of Gaul letters of his tearful confession and lamentation — namely, that where his deviation had formerly been known, there too his amendment might be recognized, and that those who had before been witnesses of his error might afterwards be the same of his correction.

From his confession, or rather his lamentation, we have thought fit to insert certain passages, for a twofold reason: that his correction might be both a testimony to us and an example to those who waver, so that they whose error they had not blushed to follow, they might not blush to follow in his amendment; and that as they were made sick with a like sickness, so they might be healed with a like remedy. He therefore, having recognized the perversity of his opinion and beheld the light of the faith, writing to the bishops of Gaul, thus began: 'What I should first accuse in myself, O my lords the venerable and most blessed priests, I know not, and what I should first excuse in myself I do not find.'

'So it is that unskilfulness and pride, so foolish simplicity together with a noxious persuasion, so fervour with intemperance, so — to speak more truly — a faith made feeble by its own diminution, all at once took hold in me and grew strong, so that both to have obeyed so many and such great errors is my confounding, and to have been able to cast these same things from my mind is my astonishing cause for thanksgiving.' And after a little he adds:

'If therefore, in no way perceiving this power of God, being wise in our own sense and by our own reasoning as though God were doing something beneath Himself, we should say that man was born together with God in such a way as to give separately the things that belong to God alone to God, and to assign separately the things that are man's to man alone, we most manifestly introduce a fourth person into the Trinity, and out of the one Son of God we begin to make not one but two Christs — which may the Lord and God Christ Himself now turn away from us. Therefore we confess our Lord and God Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, who before the ages was born of the Father for Himself, and in time, of the Holy Spirit and Mary ever-Virgin, was for us made man, born God; and confessing both substances, of flesh and

'the Word, one and the same God and man inseparable, we ever receive with the pious belief of faith; and from the time of the flesh assumed we so say that all the things that were God's passed over into the man, that all the things that were the man's came into God; and by this understanding the Word was made flesh — not that by any conversion or mutability it began to be what it was not, but that by the power of the divine dispensation the Word of the Father, never departing from the Father, deigned properly to become man, and the Only-begotten was made incarnate by that secret mystery which He Himself knows (for it is ours to believe, His to know):

'and thus God the Word Himself, taking on all that is man's, is man, and the assumed man, receiving all that is God's, cannot be other than God — yet not, because He is said to be incarnate and commingled, is any diminution of His substance to be supposed. God knows how to be mingled without corruption of Himself, and yet to be mingled in truth, and so to take on that nothing of increase accrues to Him, just as He knows how to pour Himself out wholly so that no loss befalls Him. Let us not, therefore, according to the understanding of our weakness, forming our conjecture after the visible evidences of experience concerning creatures that mutually interpenetrate one another as equals, suppose that God and man are commingled, and that by such confusion of flesh and Word some sort of body has been produced.

'Far be it so to believe, that we should think two natures reduced into one substance as though by some kind of fusion; for a commingling of this sort is the corruption of each part. For God, who is containing, not contained, penetrating, not penetrable, filling, not to be filled, who is everywhere wholly at once and everywhere diffused, has by the infusion of His power been mercifully mingled with human nature.' And after a little:

'God-man, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is therefore born to us, properly of the Holy Spirit and Mary ever-Virgin; and thus Word and flesh become one in each other, so that, each substance abiding naturally in its own perfection, without prejudice to itself, the divine things communicate to the humanity and the human things partake in the divinity, and He is called — and truly is — not one God, another man, but the same very God who is also man, and in turn the man who is also God, Jesus Christ, one Son of God.'

'And therefore this must always be done and believed by us: that we do not deny our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, true God — whom we confess to be ever with the Father and equal to the Father before the ages — to have been, from the time of the flesh assumed, made God-man; nor say that He, as it were by degrees and in time advancing into God, was of one state before the resurrection and of another after the resurrection, but that He was ever of the same fullness and power.' And again a little after: 'But because the Word of God descended graciously into man by assuming man, and through the assumption man ascended into God, the whole God became the whole man as Word. For it was not God the Father who was made man, nor the Holy Spirit, but the Only-begotten of the Father.'

'And therefore one person is to be understood, of flesh and Word, so that we may faithfully believe, without any doubt, that one and the same Son of God, ever inseparable, of twofold substance, even named a giant, in the days of His flesh both truly ever did all the things that are man's and truly ever possessed the things that are God's; since even though He was crucified out of weakness, yet He lives by the power of God.' This confession of his, then — that is, the faith of all the catholics — both all the African bishops, from whose region he was writing, and all the Gallican bishops, to whom he was writing, approved; nor has there yet arisen anyone at all to whom this faith could be displeasing without the charge of unbelief, for it belongs to professed impiety to deny an approved piety.

The consent of all, then, ought now to suffice by itself for the refutation of the heresy, since the authority of the whole body is a manifestation of undoubted truth, and reason has been made perfect where no one dissents; so that, if anyone should strive to think contrary to this, his assertion at the very first glance is not so much to be listened to as his perversity to be condemned, for he who assails the judgement of the whole exhibits with himself the prejudgement of his own condemnation, and he who overturns what has been established by all has no place for a hearing. For truth once confirmed by all, whatever comes against it, by that very fact is straightway to be recognized as falsehood.

For whatever dissents from the truth is falsehood; and by this it is fitting that even this alone should suffice for the sentence of condemnation against him — that he disagrees with the judgement of truth. But nevertheless, since the word of reason is no hindrance to reason, and truth ventilated ever shines the brighter, and it is better that those who err be corrected by the treatment of disputation than condemned by the severity of censure, we must, so far as in us lies, by divine aid cure the old heresy in these new heretics, so that health being received through sacred mercy, their healing may rather furnish a testimony to the holy faith than their condemnation an example of just severity. May the very Truth

be present at this disputation and discourse held concerning Himself, and by that mercy whereby God deigned to come to men, may He succour human errors; for to this end above all He willed to be born on earth and in a man, that there might no longer be any place for falsehood. Since in the first book we set forth certain premises whereby we might prove that the new heretic sprouts from the stems of an ancient heresy, the just condemnation of the earlier heretics ought indeed to suffice for him to receive the sentence of just condemnation; for, since he has the same roots and emerges from the same trenches, he is already sufficiently condemned in his own authors — especially since

even those who most recently before these men followed ill, rightly condemned that very thing which these men now assert; so that the examples of their own kind ought to suffice these men abundantly in either direction — namely, of those who were amended, or of those who were condemned. For if they can be corrected, they have in the corrections of their own kind a remedy; if they cannot be corrected, they have in the condemnation of their own kind their sentence.

Nevertheless, lest we should seem to wish to use prejudgement against them rather than judgement, let us bring forth into the open their very pestilent proposition, or rather their blaspheming madness, taking in all things the shield of faith and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God — namely, that the same sword of the divine word may even now cut off in the new serpents the resurgent head of the ancient dragon, which it formerly severed in the ancient serpents.

For since the error of these men is the same as that of those, the severing of these should be counted as the severing of those; and because the reborn serpents drive their pestilent blasts within the Lord's Church and cause some to waste away with their hissings, a fresh remedy must be joined to the ancient cures on account of the new infirmities, so that, even if what was formerly done avails not for the cure of the present languor, yet what we now do may avail for the health of those who languish. You say, then, whoever you are, O heretic, who deny that God was born of the Virgin, that Mary the Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ cannot be called Theotokos, that is, Mother of God, but Christotokos, that is, only Mother of Christ, not of God. 'For no one,' you say, 'gives birth to one older than herself.'

Concerning this so foolish argument indeed — that you think the nativity of God is to be estimated by a carnal understanding, and believe that the mystery of majesty is to be judged by human reasonings — we shall dispute afterwards, if God grant it. For now, in the meantime, let us prove both that Christ is God and that Mary is the Mother of God, by divine witnesses. Hear, then, the angel of God speaking to the shepherds concerning the birth of God: 'There is born to you this day,' he says, 'a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord, in the city of David.'

Lest indeed you should understand only man in Christ, he added for you the names both of Lord and of Saviour — namely, that Him whom you knew to be Saviour you might in no wise doubt to be God; and since the power of saving belongs to none but the divine authority, you should not question that He is of divine power in whom you had learned the power of saving to be. But lest this should seem too little for your unbelief, because the angel named Him Lord and Saviour rather than God or Son of God — though you most impiously deny to be God Him whom you confess to be Saviour — hear also the archangel Gabriel proclaiming to Mary the Virgin: 'The Holy Spirit,' he says, 'shall come upon you, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow you:'

'therefore also that which shall be born of you, holy, shall be called the Son of God.' You see how, being about to declare the nativity of God, he prefaced it with the works of divinity. 'For the Holy Spirit,' he says, 'shall come upon you, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow you.' Most beautifully speaking, the angel by the divinity of his words unfolded the majesty of the divine work. For the Holy Spirit, sanctifying the inward parts of the Virgin and breathing therein the power of His divinity, inserted and mingled Himself with human nature, and made His own that which had been foreign to Him, taking it to Himself, that is, by His own power and majesty.

And lest perchance human weakness should not withstand the entrance of divinity, the power of the Most High strengthened the Virgin venerable to all, that it might firm up her bodily frailty by the protection of its overshadowing poured around her, and that, for the accomplishing of the ineffable sacrament of the sacred conception, human weakness might not fail, sustained as it was by the divine overshadowing. 'The Holy Spirit,' then, he says, 'shall come upon you, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow you.' If, therefore, He who was to be born of the holy Virgin was to be a mere man only, why was so great a message of a sacred Advent set in motion? Why so great an array of the Godhead itself? If indeed a man was being born only of a man, and flesh only of flesh, a mere command or the divine will could have sufficed for that.

For if, to fashion the heavens, to found the earth, to create the sea, and finally to make the seats and thrones and angels and archangels and principalities and powers—if, in short, to create the whole heavenly host and those countless thousands upon thousands of the divine armies, God's will and command alone sufficed for Him, since He Himself spoke, and they were made; He commanded, and they were created—why then, as you say, did that seem too little for the conception of one man which was enough for the bringing forth of all things divine? And why did the power and majesty of God trust too little in the birth of a single infant that which sufficed for the founding of all things earthly and heavenly?

But surely the point is this: that all those works were accomplished by the mere command of God, whereas the Nativity was not to be accomplished except by His coming; for God could neither be conceived by a human being except by giving Himself, nor be born except by entering in. And therefore the archangel announced to the Virgin the sacred majesty that would come upon her—namely, that since so great a thing could not be brought about by human agency, he declared that His own majesty would be present at the conception, He who was to be present at the birth. And therefore the Word the Son descends, the majesty of the Holy Spirit is present, the power of the Father overshadows—so that, indeed, in the mystery of the sacred conception the whole cooperation of the Trinity might be present. "Therefore," he says, "that which shall be born of you shall be called holy, the Son of God."

Well did he add "therefore," to show, namely, that these things would follow precisely because those had gone before; and because God had come upon her at the conception, therefore God would come forth at the birth. He thus gave the reason for so great a matter to the maiden who did not know it, saying in effect: because the Holy Spirit shall come upon you, and because the power of the Most High shall overshadow you, therefore also that which shall be born shall be called holy, the Son of God. This is to say: Do not be ignorant, he says, of this great preparation for so great a matter, this mystery of so great a sacrament; the whole majesty of God comes into you for this reason, because from you the Son of God shall be born. What further can here be doubted, or what more can be said? He said that God would come upon her, and that the Son of God would be born.

Ask now, if you please, how either the Son of God is not God, or how she who brought forth God cannot be Theotokos, that is, the Mother of God. These things alone, then, ought to suffice you—nay rather, these should suffice you supremely.

But since the testimonies to the sacred Nativity are abundantly at hand—inasmuch as all things were written for this very purpose, that they might be witnesses of it—let us examine, from some small portion, even the proclamation concerning God in the Old Testament, so that you may understand that the birth of God from a Virgin was foretold not only at the time it was announced when it came to pass, but was predicted even from the very beginning of the world. For truly, since an unspeakable work was to be accomplished, the announcement of things to come, always sent beforehand, would remove any incredulity toward present realities. And so the prophet Isaiah says: "Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and shall bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which is interpreted, God with us." What room is here, O unbeliever, for ambiguity?

The prophet said a virgin would conceive—a virgin conceived; that a son would be born—a son was born; that He would be called God—He is called God. For He is called by that name which by nature He is; whence, since the Spirit of God said He was to be called God, he proves himself empty of the Spirit of God who has rendered himself a stranger to the fellowship of this divine designation. Behold then, he says, a virgin shall conceive, and shall bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which is interpreted, God with us. But perhaps this is the evasion to which the unbeliever may turn: to say that when the prophet said He was to be called God, this pertained not so much to the majesty of the Godhead as to the mere designation of a name.

But what shall we make of the fact that in the Gospels Christ is nowhere at all called by this name, and yet the Spirit of God cannot be said to have lied through the prophet? What then does this mean? That you may understand, surely, that that prophecy foretold the name of the Godhead, not of the flesh. For since in the Gospel the man united to God received another name, of necessity this designation was of the man, that one of the Godhead. But let us proceed further and summon other testimonies of truth to prove the truth. For where God is concerned, the Godhead is proved by nothing better than by its own witnesses. The same prophet therefore says elsewhere: "A son is born to us, a little one is given to us, whose government is upon his shoulder":

"and his name shall be called Messenger of great counsel, Mighty God, Father of the world to come, Prince of peace." Just as above the prophet had said He was to be called Emmanuel, so here he says He is to be called Messenger of great counsel, and Mighty God, and Father of the world to come, and Prince of peace—although nowhere in the Gospels do we read that He was called by these names:

so that we may understand, of course, that these are not names of the flesh but of the Godhead; and that that name in the Gospels is of the assumed man, while this is of the unbegotten power; and because God was to be born in a man, the very names were so divided by the sacred dispensation that He gave to the flesh the name of the man and to the Godhead that of God. He shall be called, therefore, he says, Messenger of great counsel, Mighty God, Father of the world to come, Prince of peace. Not here, whoever you are, O heretic—not here did that prophet, full of the divine Spirit, compare Him who was born to a molten statue and a senseless image, after the example of your assertion. For "a son," he says, "is born to us, a little one is given to us, whose government is upon his shoulder":

"and his name shall be called Messenger of great counsel, Mighty God." Lest you should understand this One whom he proclaimed to be God to be any other than Him who was born in the flesh, he added the name of the Nativity, saying: A son is born to us, a little one is given to us. You see with how many appellations the prophet made use to demonstrate the property of the bodily birth. For he called Him both born and a little one, so that by the word "littleness" he might more clearly express the meaning of offspring brought forth.

Foreseeing beyond doubt this perversity of the blaspheming heretics, the divine Spirit demonstrated to the whole world by the very words of the things themselves that He who was being born was God, so that even if the heretic should seek to blaspheme, he could nevertheless find no room whatsoever for blasphemy. "A son," therefore, he says, "is born to us, a little one is given to us, whose government is upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Messenger of great counsel, Mighty God, Father of the world to come, Prince of peace." This little one who was born, he taught to be both Prince of peace, and Father of the world to come, and Mighty God. What room is there for evasion? This little one who was born cannot be separated from the God who was born in Him:

for this One whom he called born, he named Father of the world to come; this One whom he named a little one, he foretold to be Mighty God. What is there, heretic, to which you may betake yourself? All things are hedged in and closed off; there is nowhere at all a place to escape. It remains that the error which your will refused to understand, necessity should at last begin at least to confess. But not content with these things which suffice, let us inquire what the Holy Spirit has also said through another prophet: "If a man," he says, "shall crucify his God, because you crucify me?" That the things prophesied might become still more evident, what the prophet sang concerning the passion of our Lord, he foretold as though from the very mouth of Him of whom he spoke: If a man shall crucify his God, because you crucify me?

Does it not seem to you, I ask, that our Lord God said this, as though being led to the cross: Why, I ask, do you not acknowledge me your Redeemer? Why do you not know God clothed in flesh for us? Do you prepare death for your Savior? Do you lead the Author of life to death? I am your God whom you hang up, your God whom you crucify. What error, I ask, is this, or what madness is it? "If a man shall crucify his God, because you crucify me?" You see how this utterance is, in a manner, the very utterance of the things that were done. Do you seek anything more express or more manifest?

You see how the sacred testimonies accompanied the Lord Jesus Christ, born in the flesh, from His very cradle, as it were, all the way to the cross which He endured; since indeed Him whom you read elsewhere to be God born in the flesh, you here behold to be God crucified upon the cross. And therefore the prophet

both there, where He was born, is called God, and there, where He was crucified, is most evidently named God—lest, that is, the assumption of the flesh should in any way prejudice the dignity of the Godhead, or either the lowliness of the body or the reproach of the passion should impair the honor of His majesty; since indeed both the condescension of so humble a nativity and the piety of one so kindly suffering ought to increase in us affection and worship for Him. For it is surely the greatest and most monstrous crime that He should on this account have less of honor among us, because He has expended more of love.

But leaving aside these things, which for this reason can in no way be fully unfolded—because, as the immensity of His benefits, so also their recounting has no measure—it is time that we consult concerning Him the strongest and most manifest witness of Him, Paul the apostle. For he can most faithfully tell us all things concerning God, from whose breast God ever spoke. He testifies, then, in this manner concerning the grace and coming of the Lord our God, being sent to destroy the error of Gentile superstition, the chosen teacher of the nations:

"The grace of God our Savior," he says, "has appeared to all men, instructing us that, denying ungodliness and worldly desires, we should live soberly and righteously and godly in this world, looking for the blessed hope and the coming of the glory of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ." "The grace of God our Savior," he says, "has appeared." Rightly did he use a fitting word to show the coming of the new grace and generation. For in saying "has appeared," he expressed the rising of the new grace and nativity, because from thence the gift of the new grace began to appear, from the time when God, born in the world, appeared. Worthily and fittingly, then, did he point out this light of the new grace by the very property of the word, as though indicating it with a finger.

For that is most rightly said to have "appeared" which is shown as if by the sudden light of an appearing, just as in the Gospels we read that the star "appeared" to the Magi of the East, and in Exodus "there appeared," he says, "to Moses an angel in the fire of the flame of the bush." For in all these and other sacred visions, Scripture judged that this word above all should be used, that it should say those things "appeared" which shone with unwonted brightness. And so likewise the apostle too, knowing the coming of the heavenly grace which appeared at the rising of the sacred Nativity, expressed it by the word of shining apparition, so that he should say that had "appeared" which radiated with the splendor of a new light. "The grace of God our Savior," therefore, "has appeared."

Can you here plead anything, as though from an ambiguity of names, so as to say that Christ is one thing and God another, so that you may pull the Savior away from the majesty of His own name and sever the Lord from the Godhead? Behold, here the vessel of God speaks from God, and testifies by most evident proclamation that the grace of God appeared from Mary. And lest perhaps you should say that it was not God who appeared from Mary, he at once added the name of Savior—namely, that you might believe Him born of Mary to be God, whom you cannot deny to be the Savior born, according to that saying: "For unto you is born this day a Savior."

O admirable teacher, and one truly given by God to the nations, who, knowing this madness of heretical depravity that was to come—which would turn the names of God into contention and would not fear to slander God concerning His own names—lest the heretic should sever the name of Savior from the Godhead, set the name of God before it; namely, that the name of God placed first might claim for itself all the names that followed, and that no one, in what followed, might believe Christ to be a mere solitary man, whom in the very first appellation he had learned to be God. "Looking," says the same apostle, "for the blessed hope and the coming of the glory of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ."

That teacher of divine wisdom saw full well that against the insidious snares of diabolical cunning simple doctrine alone does not suffice, unless he had armed the holy preaching of the faith with the safeguard of caution. And therefore, when he had above set down the name of God and of the Savior, here he added "Jesus Christ"—namely, lest perhaps you should not believe the name of Savior alone to suffice for signifying the Lord Jesus Christ, and should not understand that same Jesus Christ to be God whom you had come to know to be God as Savior. What then does he say? "Looking," he says, "for the blessed hope and the coming of the glory of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ." Nothing here of the names of our Lord is lacking:

here you see both God, and Savior, and Jesus, and Christ. But seeing all these, you perceive all to be in God. For you heard "God," yet "Savior"; you heard "God," yet "Jesus"; you heard that He is "God," yet "Christ." That cannot be separated by diversity of appellation which the Godhead has joined in unity. Whichever of these you inquire into, you find the same. The Savior is God, Jesus is God, Christ is God; all this that you hear is plural in designation, but is one in power, because, since both the Savior is God and Jesus is God and Christ is God, it is plain to understand that all these are distinguished by appellation, but are joined in majesty.

And since you most evidently hear that in each single title one God is named, you can surely understand plainly that there is one God in them all. And thus it is no longer permitted you, from the dissimilarity of the Lord's titles, to seek a discrepancy of power, and to make, for the variety of appellation, a diversity of person. It is not permitted to say: Christ was born of Mary, and not God—for the apostle proclaims: God. It is not permitted to say: Jesus was born of Mary, and not God—for the apostle testifies: God. It is not permitted to say: the Savior was born, and not God—for the apostle affirms: God. There is nothing to which you may betake yourself: whatever you take from the Lord's titles, God is what you name.

There is nothing you may say, nothing you may bring forward, nothing you may touch upon with dishonest falsehood. You may have, in impious unbelief, that which you do not believe; you have not, in the occasion for slander, that which you may deny. Although we began a little above to speak of the divine and saving grace of our Lord, I wish that we should say some further things about this same matter from the sacred readings. We read in the Acts of the Apostles that the apostle James thus refuted those who, while receiving the Gospel, nevertheless judged that the yoke of the old law must be borne: "Why," he says, "do you tempt God, to place a yoke upon the necks of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?"

"But we believe that we shall be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, in the same manner as they." The gift of this grace, the apostle says, was certainly given through Jesus. Answer me now, if you please: do you consider this grace, which was given for the salvation of all, to have been given by a man or by God? If by a man, the vessel of God, Paul, cries out against you, saying: "The grace of God our Savior has appeared." For he teaches this to be the grace of a gift, not of human weakness. And indeed, even if the sacred testimony were not at hand, the very truth of the matter was itself a testimony, because things frail and earthly cannot bestow a good that is perpetual and immortal, nor can anyone give to another that which he himself lacks, or grant an abundance of that thing of which he confesses himself to endure a want.

You must therefore not deny that grace was given by God. It is God, then, who gave; but it was given through the Lord Jesus Christ: therefore the Lord Jesus Christ is God. But if He is indeed, as He is, God, then she who bore God is Theotokos, that is, the mother of God. Unless perhaps you wish to stretch to so ridiculous a contradiction of blasphemy as to deny that she, from whom God was born, is the mother of God—although you cannot deny that He who was born is God. But let us nonetheless see what the Gospel of God also thought concerning this same grace of our Lord. "Grace," it says, "and truth came through Jesus Christ." If Christ is a mere solitary man, how did these things come through Christ?

Whence in Him the divine power, if in Him is, as you say, only the human condition? Whence the heavenly bounty, if there is earthly poverty? For no one can bestow what he does not have. Christ, therefore, in giving divine grace, had what He gave. For no one can sustain the difference between these most opposite things, so as at once both to suffer the want of one in need and to have the munificence of one who bestows. And therefore the apostle Paul, knowing that all the treasures of heavenly riches are in Christ, rightly writes to the churches: "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you."

He, of course, who had already often taught that the same One is God who is Christ, and that all the majesty of the Godhead is in Him, and that all the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Him bodily, now rightly prays for the grace of Christ alone, without the addition of the name of God—[because, since he had often taught that the same grace of God is that of Christ, he now most fully prays for the grace of Christ alone]—because he knows that in the grace of Christ all the grace of God is contained. "The grace," therefore, "of our Lord Jesus Christ," he says, "be with you." I ask you, whoever you are, O heretic: writing these things to the churches, what did Paul pray for those to whom he wrote? For he says: "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you."

If Jesus Christ is a mere solitary man, then he too, in wishing the grace of Christ to be given to the churches, was wishing the grace of a man to be given; and in saying "the grace of Christ be with you," he was saying this: 「the grace of a man be with you, the grace of the flesh be with you, the grace of bodily weakness, the grace of human frailty.」 Or why should he name at all the name of that grace, if he wished for the grace of a man—since there was no ground for wishing where there was nothing to be wished for, nor was there any need to pray that his grace should come to those who did not, as you say, possess the very substance of that grace which was wished for? Therefore you see that these things are utterly foolish and ridiculous—nay rather, not ridiculous, but to be lamented.

For those things which to certain more careless persons are ridiculous, are to be wept over by the godly and faithful; because, in the folly of your unbelief, they pour out the tears of charity, and in the senselessness of another's impiety, they have the tears of their own piety. Let us, then, at some point come to our senses and breathe again, because this way of thinking lacks not only wisdom but even the Spirit, since it is both void of spiritual wisdom and a stranger to the Spirit of salvation.

But perhaps you say that this grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, of which the apostle writes, was not born with Him but afterward infused into Him by the entering-in of the Godhead—because you also say that that man Himself, the Lord Jesus Christ, whom you call solitary, was not born with God, but is said to have been afterward assumed by God, and through this the grace was given to that man at the time when the Godhead also was given. Nor do we say anything other than that the divine grace descended together with the Godhead, because the divine grace is both of God and is, in a manner, the bestowal of the Godhead itself and the gift of the munificence of graces. Perhaps, then, there might be thought to be between us a difference of time rather than of substance, because you would say that the Godhead—which we say was born with the Lord Jesus—was afterward infused.

But the point is this: that, in denying the Godhead to have been born with the Lord, you cannot afterward faithfully confess it either; because one and the same thing cannot be in part impious and in part be approved as pious, and the same thing be in a portion of faith and in a portion of faithlessness. First, then, I ask this of you: do you say that the Lord Jesus Christ, who was born of the Virgin Mary, is only the son of a man, or also the Son of God? For we—that is, the faith of all catholics—we, I say, all both believe and understand and know and confess both this, that He is the son of a man, because He was born of a man, and the Son of God, because He was conceived of the Godhead. Do you, then, assert both of these, that is, the Son of God and of man, or only that He is of a man?

If only of a man, the apostles cry out against you, the prophets cry out, and finally He Himself through whom the conception was accomplished, the Holy Spirit, cries out. Your most shameless mouth is overwhelmed by all the testimonies of the divine writings, overwhelmed by the holy witnesses of the sacred volume, overwhelmed finally by the very Gospel of God as though by a divine hand; and that great Gabriel, who by the power of his word restrained the unbelieving voice in Zechariah, much more condemned you, blasphemous and impious, by his own mouth, saying to the Virgin Mary the mother of God: "The Holy Spirit," he says, "shall come upon you, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow you: therefore also that which shall be born of you holy shall be called the Son of God."

You see that, in order for Jesus Christ to become according to the flesh the son of a man, He was first proclaimed the Son of God; for the Virgin Mary, who was to bring forth the Lord, conceived by the Holy Spirit descending into her and the power of the Most High cooperating. And through this you understand that the origin of our Lord and Savior is from thence whence His conception was; and since He was born with the whole fullness of the Godhead descending into the Virgin, He could not have been the son of man unless He had first been the Son of God. And therefore the angel of God, sent to announce the nativity of the sacred birth, when he had first spoken of the sacrament of the conception, imposed a name upon the birth itself, saying: "Therefore also that which shall be born of you holy shall be called the Son of God."

Jesus Christ, therefore, is the Son of God, because He was both begotten of the Godhead and conceived of the Godhead. But if the Son of God, then undoubtedly God. And if God, then not lacking the grace of God: for He never lacked that grace which He Himself made—for "grace and truth came through Jesus Christ." All grace, therefore, is in Him, all power, all might, all Godhead, and finally all the fullness of the Godhead and of His own majesty were ever with Him and in Him: whether in heaven, whether on earth, whether in the womb, whether at His birth, nothing of God was ever lacking to God. For the deity was ever with God, never separated from Him by place, never by time.

For God is everywhere whole, everywhere perfect, not divided, not changed, not diminished, because nothing can ever be added to God nor taken away from Him: for thus the deity has no diminution, just as neither increase. The same One, therefore, was on earth who was also in heaven, the same in lowly things who was in the highest, the same in the littleness of a man who was in the majesty of God. And therefore rightly the apostle, in naming the grace of Christ, was naming the grace of God, because Christ was wholly that which God is: all the power of God, all the Godhead, all the fullness of the Godhead had come in the very conception of the man. For thence was to Him all the perfection of the Godhead, whence also His origin.

For that man was never without God, since indeed the very thing that He was, He had received from God. This, therefore, first—whether you will or not—you cannot deny: that the Lord Jesus Christ is the Son of God, since the archangel indeed cries out in the Gospels: "That which shall be born of you holy shall be called the Son of God." And this being established, know that whatever you read of Christ, you read of the Son of God; whatever you read of the Lord or of Jesus, pertains to the Son of God. For all these names of His name the Son of God; all these titles of His cry out the Son of God.

And therefore, in all these things, whatever you hear, recognizing the name of the Godhead, since in all of them you see that you ought to understand the Son of God, argue, if you please, how you can separate God from the Son of God. Writing to the Romans, that divine teacher of the churches, when he was rebuking—nay rather, lamenting—the unbelief of the Jews, that is, of his own brethren, used these words: "I could wish," he says, "that I myself were anathema from Christ for my brethren, who are my kinsmen according to the flesh, who are Israelites, whose is the adoption of sons and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the law and the service and the promises; whose are the fathers, and of whom is Christ according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever."

O the affection both of a most faithful apostle and of a most devoted kinsman, who out of inestimable charity wishes to die both for his kinsmen as a neighbor and for his disciples as a teacher! And what, in the end, was the cause of his wishing to die? Surely one only: that they might live. And in what was their life contained? In this, namely—as he himself says—that they should acknowledge Christ as God, born according to the flesh from their own flesh. And therefore the apostle grieved the more, because they did not understand Him to have been born of Israel, whom they, more than others, ought to have loved, as brought forth from their own. "Of whom is Christ," he says, "according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever": that is, he says that Christ was born of them according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever.

You do not deny that Christ was born of them according to the flesh: but that same One, who was born of them, is God. Why do you go about? Why do you evade? The apostle says that Christ, born of Israel according to the flesh, is God: do you show when He was not, of whom is Christ, he says, according to the flesh, who is over all, God. You see, because the apostle has joined this in unity, God can in no way be separated from Christ. For just as the apostle proclaims Christ to be of them, so he confirms God to be in Christ. Either you must deny both of these, or confess both. Christ is said to be born of them according to the flesh, but that same One in Christ is proclaimed by the apostle to be God. Whence also elsewhere:

For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself. This can in no way be divided from one another. Either deny that Christ was brought forth from them, or confess that God was brought forth in Christ from the Virgin -- He 'who is,' says the Apostle, 'over all things, God blessed forever.' The name of God alone might indeed have sufficed abundantly for the faithful to indicate the majesty of the Godhead; but by adding 'over all things, God blessed,' he shut out the blasphemy of a treacherous assertion, lest, that is, any of the impious should take up the word 'God' -- which is sometimes granted even to men temporarily as a gift of the divine dispensation -- to the injury of the supreme Godhead, and should fit it to insulting comparisons with God; as, for instance, in that which God says to Moses: 'I have made thee a god to Pharaoh,' or in that other: 'I said:'

'You are gods' -- which surely has a most evident signification of a name that is merely conferred. For when He says 'I said: gods,' it is not so much a name of power as the speech of the one speaking. And likewise that saying, 'I have made thee a god to Pharaoh,' set forth not the divinity of the one receiving it, but the power of the one giving it. For when He said 'I have made,' there was signified in it surely the power of the God who gave, not a divine nature in the one who received. But concerning God our Lord Jesus Christ, when it is said 'who is over all things, God blessed forever,' the reality is at once proved in the word and the reality of the word is demonstrated in the name; because the name of God in the Son of God is not the signification of an adoption bestowed, but the truth and the property of His nature.

Therefore, says the same Apostle, 'from now on we know no one according to the flesh; and even if we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him so no longer.' All the writings of the sacred word agree well with one another, and in every part throughout, even where they do not chime together in the outward form of words, they yet accord in the force of their meaning; as in this which he says: 'and even if we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him so no longer.' For the testimony of the present saying is a confirmation of the earlier one which he had said: 'from whom is Christ according to the flesh, who is over all things God blessed forever.' For there he set down 'from whom is Christ according to the flesh,' but here 'and even if we have known Christ according to the flesh'; there 'who is over all things God,' but here:

'Christ according to the flesh we now know no longer.' The outward form of the words is different, but the force of the reality is one. For the very same One whom there he proclaims to be God over all, born according to the flesh, that same One he here affirms he now knows no longer according to the flesh -- for this reason, namely, because that same One whom he had known born in the flesh he confesses to be God forever, and therefore that He is unknown to him according to the flesh, because He is over all things, God blessed forever. And by this, both that saying there, 'who is over all things God,' says this: 'we now know Christ no longer according to the flesh'; and here, 'we now know Christ no longer according to the flesh,' says this: 'who is God blessed forever.'

The preaching of the apostolic doctrine therefore ascends, as it were, to a higher step; and although in either statement it agrees with itself in sense, yet it confirms the mystery of the perfect faith with a more explicit sentence, as it were, saying: 'and even if we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him so no longer' -- namely, because before we knew Him both as man and as God, but now only as God. For with the infirmity of the flesh ceasing, we now know nothing in Him except the power of the Godhead, because the whole in Him is the power of the divine majesty, where the infirmity of human weakness has ceased to be. So then by this testimony he set forth the whole mystery both of the flesh assumed and of the Godhead made perfect.

For in saying 'and even if we have known Christ according to the flesh,' he spoke of the mystery of God born in the flesh; but in adding 'yet now we know Him no longer,' he explained the force of the infirmity laid aside. And by this, that knowing according to the flesh pertains to the signification of the man, but the not-knowing to the honour of the Godhead. For this is what it means to say: 'we knew Christ according to the flesh' -- so long as there was that which was recognized according to the flesh; 'now we know Him no longer' -- after it ceased to be. For the nature of the flesh has been translated into a spiritual substance, and that which had once been of man has become wholly of God.

And therefore we do not know Christ according to the flesh, because, the bodily infirmity being absorbed by the divine majesty, nothing remained in the sacred body by which the weakness of the flesh could be recognized in Him. And by this, whatever had before been of a twofold substance has become of a single power, since surely there is no doubt that Christ, who was crucified out of our weakness, yet lives wholly by the divine majesty. This indeed the Apostle, proclaiming it throughout the whole body of his writings, also well says in writing to the Galatians: 'Paul, an apostle, not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father.' You see how well it agrees with the earlier and the present passages. For there he says:

'we now know Christ no longer according to the flesh'; here he says: 'not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ.' It is plain how here too he teaches the same thing as in the earlier passages. For in saying that he was sent not through man, he says this: 'we do not know Christ according to the flesh.' And therefore 'I was sent not through man, but through Christ,' because sent through Christ I was not sent through man, but through God. For the name of man no longer falls upon Him in whom the Godhead has claimed the whole. And therefore, when he had said that he was sent not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ, he well added 'and God the Father,' that is, signifying that he was sent by God the Father and by God the Son.

In these words, indeed, although on account of the mystery of the sacred and ineffable generation there is a twofold person -- of the Begetter and of the Begotten -- yet the power of the sending God is one. And therefore he, saying that he was sent by God the Father and God the Son, shows indeed a twofold number in the persons, but teaches one power in the sending. 'But through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised Him from the dead.'

A most excellent and admirable teacher indeed, knowing that the Lord Jesus Christ must be proclaimed as true God and likewise as true man, so proclaims the majesty of the Godhead in Him that he by no means abandons the confession of the incarnation; excluding surely both the phantom of Marcion by the true incarnation, and the poverty of Ebion by the perfect Godhead, lest, that is, through either perversity of blasphemy the Lord Jesus Christ should be believed either as wholly man without God or as God without man. Well then did the Apostle, proclaiming that he was sent both by God the Father and by God the Son, at once join the confession of the Lord's incarnation, saying: