For [the question is] whether the Son of Man, as the Lord often says, had to suffer, or, as you have newly introduced, that the Divinity suffered. (In the Greek, mirroring the same argument:) Shall I raise my voice? Yet in your writings you have said that, after the invocation of the Trinity, Christ was crucified for us. Shall I not call you a Manichaean? Rather, you have become self-refuted, having said that it was God, and not Christ, who was crucified. Shall I declare you a Nestorian? For you have shown that, after the Father, you do not confess the one hymned by the faithful as the mighty God... to have been crucified. Shall I call you an Apollinarist? For you yourself, having confounded God with the sufferings of the flesh... Constrained by grief, I set these things before you together with Acacius, who joined me in agreement upon this (him the pontiff of the Romans, but Christ the bishop of all).
(The Greek here repeats:) ...the bishop of all: Why do you lay waste the Church? Why do you scatter the sheep, O shepherd of Christ? If I speak amiss, do you tell me; for I ask, since you surpass me and many others in the most correct doctrine. What then shall we say? As Paul, Christ crucified, or as you, the Immortal crucified? What shall we say? That the Son of Man, as the Lord in many ways declared, had to suffer, or, as you have innovated, that the Godhead suffered? (Then in Latin:) The Gospels and the Acts and the Apostle, as you say, do not speak as they ought, but these are things to be blamed in your judgment and in the judgment of those who follow this folly of yours by saying the Trisagion crucified; for they are approved by you, because they are with you in superinducing a quaternity. But if these things are so,
why are the divine Scriptures read, if credence is given not to them but to you? For up and down they deliver to you Christ crucified for our sake, and not the Trisagion, as you now say; nay, the divine Scriptures have also declared that those who say God suffered must be cast out. Now already, even before these letters, as to my lord and father and as to one thinking rightly, I gave charge that you should correct and rescind this impious dogma newly published by you, and you did not consent. Therefore I am moved against you as against the first inventor of these impious words, that perhaps through them you may come to fear.
while your dogma is obstructed by one lesser in dignity, and that you may the more swiftly consent rightly to preach Father and Son and Holy Spirit, adding nothing to these nor taking anything away, and may retain over us the apse of your see. But if not even so you refrain, I shall bring upon you refusal of communion; for the Apostle says: A heretical man, after a first and a second admonition, avoid, knowing that such a one is subverted and sins, being condemned by his own self. Yet we entreat God that you may not be condemned by your own self, but may rightly preach the word of truth. HERE ENDS THE LETTER OF PAMPHILUS, BISHOP OF ABYDOS, TO PETER, BISHOP OF ANTIOCH.
(This paragraph is the Greek of the foregoing:) ...to my lord and father, as to one thinking most rightly, I made known, that you should correct and tear up this impious dogma newly introduced by you; and you did not yield. On this account, therefore, as toward the first inventor of these impious words, I am moved to censures against you, that perhaps, being shamed through these and admonished by one lesser in dignity, you may the more swiftly yield to be orthodox—confessing Father and Son and Holy Spirit, adding nothing to these nor taking away, and holding fast the apse of the throne over us. But if not even so you desist, I shall lay upon you refusal of communion; for the Apostle said: A heretic, after a first and a second admonition, reject, knowing that such a one is turned aside and sins, being self-condemned.
(Greek:) But we entreat God that you may not become self-condemned, but may rightly divide the word of truth. (77.) HERE BEGINS THE LETTER OF FLACCINUS, BISHOP OF RHODOPE, TO THE SAME PETER, BISHOP OF ANTIOCH. Hunters of wild beasts are not terrified by their fury nor thrown into confusion by their bloodshot eyes, but rather, on the contrary, provoke them, because they are confident, since they are known to carry their javelins with them; and the trackers of truth do not fear the furies of kings and of the princes of heresies, nor their eyes inflamed for the ruin of them, but approach them boldly, if by any means they may hunt out of them food for God, when they make their frenzy cease, which they hold from an evil opinion. For these men resist the Holy Spirit.
For as the swallow, when it cannot hold out against the winter, seizes those places where the air is calm, so too pious men, unable to beat back the surges of heretics, take refuge there where a temperate faith stands fast. Who then is it that has stirred up the storms of the heresies? Is it not you—you who have solicited the ears of an innocent prince and crept by false letters into the heart of the pontiff, that is, of Acacius, that he might receive you into communion, saying, 'Let it no longer be imputed to me to affix the cross to the Trinity: rather I will preach Christ crucified'? For to whom would the word of imprudence not seem to err? Where, then, turning aside from this, shall I remain, not received by you? And where are the tender mercies of Christ toward Peter?
Saying these and the like, when you had turned aside the staff of exaction, you stood firm in your purpose and distribute it to all. For you have been sifted canonically by our chief priests, that is, by Peter, the prince of the apostles, to whom the Lord says: Whatsoever you shall bind upon earth shall be bound also in heaven. And you have not even deserved this, that you should be relaxed through a worthy penance, resolving within your own self that you would persevere in this condemnation; but in this life you have only hope to hope in princes, that you may return to where you were worthily cast down from the holy see. And on this account you are the more thoroughly the most wretched of all men, as having no longing at all toward the living God and toward His kingdom of the heavens.
Nevertheless, do not be whitewashed in vain with dust; for by rule of law you have seized the primacy of the priesthood. Do not puff yourself up against us who are pious and preach rightly, as though you were iron, though you are burst with gall; for although at present your fellow-heretics are still held with you, yet, just as you have, they too have bequeathed to this life such a memorial of their folly—when, through the heresies by which you were vanquished, you could not even lie hidden. Why then do you abhor Arius, and think that you do not hold his opinions? Where in your teaching is consubstantiality to be found, which in his was by no means received? For you have said: 'I hold one of the Trinity to be passible, yet not the Father nor His Spirit, but the Son of Him.'
You have been made a member of the Arian heresy, convicted by your own self, since Arius also had said this: 'If the Son is passible, but the Father is not, how are they consubstantial?' Do not, then, reject him in word yet honor him in deed; for you not only speak his sayings but even go beyond them of your own accord. For it was on this very account that it seemed good to the Fathers to say, like the seraphim, the 'Trisagion,' which confirms consubstantiality; and by this venerable utterance his blasphemy has hitherto been rebuked, and from this many of his followers, choosing consubstantiality, ran together to our Church. Where then is consubstantiality with you? For behold, you have corrupted the exposition of the illustrious Fathers who were gathered at Nicaea, the synod against Arius.
For you are not willing to interpret the Trisagion as a prudent utterance, but rather you are its very [enemy], like a deaf asp that stops its ears, dreading it as though it were something unjust to hear. To this you have now opened your ears, adding to the Immortal the death of the cross. For behold, from this He who is consubstantial is consenting to you, when in the Trisagion you chant, 'you who were crucified for us,' knowing that from this the consubstantiality of the Trinity is taken away, and proving that the Father is greater—He who spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up to death for us all. But you say, 'Why then do you rebuke the Apostle?' Far be it! Rather I rebuke you together with your comrade Arius, because the things that were well said, you two have adulterated, being ignorant of their meaning.
For in what way did one who spared not his own everlasting Word to deliver it up to death, deliver up his own self? 'But it is not so written!' Far be it! Yet these things are said among you as though you did not confess that Christ is of a twofold nature—the same one passible and mortal as man, and the same one impassible and imperishable as God—who also, as God with His own Father, did not spare His own flesh, saying to the wicked: 'Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up,' as if He were saying, 'Destroy by death the tabernacle of David, which has already fallen through disobedience, in which I mercifully dwell, that I may raise it up from death.'
For it is not, as you suppose, to be thought that I was crucified out of the power of God, but out of weakness I am crucified. For the flesh, being weak, was hung up and pierced through with nails, yet it did not reach as far as me, because my nature cannot receive this. And to Him it is impossible to draw near. Hence neither was I put to death in my divine Spirit, but I was put to death in the flesh, as in my own proper body, and this by my Spirit which gives life; for that which I shall loose, with it I shall also make alive. Do not therefore join to me the things that belong to my created flesh, nor introduce into the one of the Trinity a creature, or a thing made, or suffering, or death. For what He was, and is, and will be—you should wish to bring in nothing besides these, nor deprive my flesh of divinity.
For I am by nature His Word. I bestowed on it the things that are mine, not transferring into it the things that are mine according to nature, but according to grace; and the things that are its own it conferred upon me, not transposing the things that are naturally its own, but I willed that they should come to be from it according to grace, as though clothed round about with the animate man. Hence, since I am by nature the Son of God, I confess that I am also by nature the son of man; and therefore Paul, as speaking of me as God, says that I am the Creator of all things, saying: For whether principalities or powers, all things were created through Him and in Him; but, expounding me as man, he said that I am a thing made: Consider, he says, the apostle and high priest of our confession, Jesus, who was faithful to Him who made Him.
For in me the property of each nature is preserved unimpaired. Wherefore those who do not keep these for me but assert that I am of one nature, they say that God, having been made man, is thereafter no longer God, neither uncreated nor impassible but passible, and they make me utterly bereft of the things that are mine. Wherefore also by me were the authors of the faith inspired to call the Trisagion consubstantial, since it is a proof of the Trinity and a demonstration of divine reasoning, a refutation of Arius and a barrier against Sabellius; for those who had been led astray by these were established in the right faith of the Fathers.
But now, with Peter worthily condemned, the orthodox play the Arian, and the deniers are constituted Sabellians—[maintaining] that I am of the same honor with the Father, yet lesser, as though girded under Him; so that the hymn in the Trisagion may not be said to me equally, but the suffering of the cross may be coupled to me; nor that the Trisagion be chanted in the three subsistences, but that in me alone the hymn of the Trinity be enacted—because these men refer me as crucified in the Trisagion, lest they be caught saying that the Holy Spirit, the Immortal, was crucified for us. And yet the evil opinion of Peter has proposed and surpassed every heresy.
Wherefore, when an examination of all is to be made, the Arians, though in vain, will excuse themselves, as will the other heresies too, saying: 'Lord, you yourself said that the Father is greater than I, just as Peter the apostle also taught, saying: This Jesus, whom you crucified, God has made both Christ and Lord. Therefore we also believe that you are a thing made and not consubstantial with the Father.' But this man, of whom the discourse is, how will he excuse himself? By what Scripture will he say that a crucified Trisagion was handed down to him? For that Isaiah says the seraphim glorify the Trinity consubstantially in the Trisagion, we know. For he does not say that they cried out an immortal Father but a mortal Son; rather, consubstantially, 'Holy, holy, holy.'
Did the Gospels hand this down? Nay, he is refuted by those who said: It shall come to pass that the Son of Man be delivered up to be crucified; and: The Son of Man must suffer many things; and: All things shall be fulfilled that are written concerning the Son of Man; and: They shall deliver Him to the Gentiles and shall crucify Him; and: Judas, do you betray the Son of Man with a kiss? These things not the apostles alone but even the angels proclaimed, saying: Remember how He spoke to you in Galilee, saying that the Son of Man must suffer many things. Yet these things are to be said not as though the divinity is anywhere separated from Him, but they persuade you that the divinity remained impassible and immortal apart, and distinctly rendered the sufferings and death to His own flesh.
Whence, then, does this dogma of yours come—'the cross in the Trisagion'? Is it from the Fathers? Nay, they too will be his accusers, having nowhere asserted this. Wherefore, since he has no excuse, let him be struck dumb!" Therefore come to your senses; be watchful, that you may remain within the judgment of the Fathers; for know that neither kings nor powers nor princes will be able to loose you from the eternal bond, unless, convicted, you relinquish your temporal dignity, sitting like Job upon the dung-heap outside the city. This is my greeting to you according to God in Christ Jesus concerning you, and not according to men. HERE ENDS THE LETTER OF FLACCINUS, BISHOP OF RHODOPE, TO PETER OF ANTIOCH. (78.) HERE BEGINS THE LETTER OF ASCLEPIADES, BISHOP OF TRALLES, TO THE SAME PETER.
Behold, dearest one, the world is filled with the scandal of your exposition; the royal courts are made anxious, and the shepherds are stirred up worthily to bring mourning over you. Give therefore, I beseech you, one voice of right preaching, that you may establish the truth by confessing in common the Son of God crucified for the world, and not that He and His name are to be cast away by you, since it is otherwise perversely said in the Trisagion, His cross. Are you prior to the Fathers who convened at Nicaea, that your definition should excel over theirs? But you say, 'I added the cross into the Trisagion on account of Nestorius, because he separates the divinity in the crucifixion of Him.' And what of it? Is the sense of Nestorius truly new?
For it had this beginning from Paul of Samosata, a man of unsound mind, whom the holy Fathers at Nicaea did not indeed find alive, but they condemned his dogma and it ceased—not that they wrote down a Trisagion crucified, since this was in their knowledge exceedingly grievous; hence they laid it down that the Trisagion should be chanted in the mysteries only, according as the seraphim say, making in it no addition or subtraction. But again this impiety was renewed and strengthened under the impious Photinus; and the Fathers of holy memory, gathered at Constantinople—although they did not find him alive, yet condemned his dogma—to the end that no one should think two sons. Hence in their definition they confessed one Son.
Did they say the Trisagion crucified for our sake? Because they followed the definition of the preceding Fathers, and judged that their dogmas were to be followed—that the Trisagion should be heard in the mysteries alone impassibly, as the seraphim say, and not crucified. Then, when Nestorius was pressing on and building up the impious dogmas of his predecessors, that is, of that Samosatene and of Photinus, those assembled on his account—that is, those who were then gathered around the most blessed Celestine and Cyril—restrained impieties of this kind, not adding the cross in the Trisagion. Or do you appear to be wiser than all these, or than the Fathers of Nicaea, that your definition should be above them?
(The following is the Greek of the same:) But you say, 'I added the cross in the Trisagion on account of Nestorius, because by him the divinity is separated off in Him in His being crucified.' And what? Is not the notion newer than that of Nestorius? For it began from the vain-minded Photinus [together with the Samosatene], whom the holy Fathers at Nicaea did not overtake alive, but condemned his dogma—not by their declaring the Trisagion crucified, since this was in their knowledge exceedingly hard to bear... but the Trisagion they set apart to be uttered in the mysteries only, according as the seraphim say, making in it no addition or subtraction.
(Greek, continued:) Again, this impiety, renewed under the Samosatene, was strongly established; and the most holy Fathers of holy memory were gathered together at Constantinople, and him too they did not overtake alive, but condemned his dogma—that one should not think two sons. Therefore in their definition they confessed one Son. Did they declare the Trisagion crucified for our sake? [No,] because they followed the definition of the Fathers before them, and judged to follow their dogmas—that the Trisagion be heard in the mysteries only, impassibly, as the seraphim, and not crucified.
(Greek, continued:) Again, when Nestorius was uncovering and completing the impious dogmas 〈of those〉 before him—we mean that of Photinus and that of the Samosatene—those around Celestine and Cyril, assembled on his account, put a stop to such impieties, not laying down a cross in the Trisagion. Or do you think yourself to be wiser than all these, or [wiser than to hold fast] to what is [held from]... (then in Latin:) the Holy Spirit by those to whom there was knowledge. Is it to be more full? Your addition, then, of the cross placed in the Trisagion is an implacable blasphemy. Yet even after these holy Fathers, when a most grievous earthquake had seized Constantinople,
lesser and greater, rich and poor, slave and free, departing from it, ran together into the Campus, choosing rather to perish there in frost and winter than to fall together with that city. To them the clemency of God, in sparing, revealed to the most blessed Proclus that they should chant the Trisagion together with a litany for the appeasing of wrath; and this was made known manifestly, not to one or a second, but to the whole world. Did God add that the cross be said in it? Nothing of the kind, since it would be to His injury. For He said that it must be said: 'Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, have mercy on us.' How then have you presumed to add the cross beyond God, or even beyond the Fathers, confounding the Father with the Son and the Holy Spirit,
bringing forth the cross in the Trisagion, so that with you the Father should not be the Father alone but also the Son, and the Son should not be the Son alone but also the Father, and the Holy Spirit should not be only Spirit but also Son? Therefore, if anyone adds a cross in the Trisagion besides the Son of God, let him be anathema. If anyone introduces a quaternity in the Trisagion, adding after the Trinity Christ crucified, let him be anathema. If anyone confounds the Trinity, saying the same to be Father and Son and Holy Spirit, let him be anathema. If anyone divides the one essence of the Trinity into two, let him be anathema. (Greek:) when earthquakes had seized Constantinople, [rich]
(Greek, continued:) and poor, slave and free, departing from it, ran together into the Campus, choosing rather to perish there in frost and winter than to fall together with that same city. Whom God, having deemed worthy of His sparing and having dealt lovingly with them, revealed to blessed Proclus the Trisagion, that they, making litany, should cry it out for the ceasing of wrath; and this manifestly became known not to one or a second, but to all the world. Did God lay down in it that a cross be said? [No,] for He sees nothing to His own outrage. For He said that it is to be uttered: 'Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, have mercy on us.' How then have you dared to set a cross beside God, or even beside the
(Greek, continued:) the Fathers, confounding the Father with the Son and the Holy Spirit, sounding the cross in the Trisagion—so that with you the Father is not the Father alone but also the Son, and the Son is not the Son alone but also the Father, and the Holy Spirit is not Spirit alone but also the Son? On this account, if anyone sets up in the Trisagion a cross besides the Son of God, let him be anathema. If anyone brings in a quaternity in the Trisagion, adding after the Trinity Christ crucified, let him be anathema. If anyone confounds the Trinity, saying the same 〈one〉 to be Father and Son and Holy Spirit, let him be anathema. If anyone divides the one essence of the Trinity into two, let him be anathema.
If anyone cuts the one Son into a duality of sons, let him be anathema. If anyone says that the Word of God and the flesh are one nature, being ignorant of the difference of the natures, let him be anathema. If anyone confounds the divine nature of the Son with the sufferings of His flesh, and does not confess Him to be impassible in the Spirit but truly to have suffered in the flesh, let him be anathema. If anyone says that God tasted passibility or death, as though He came to these things by His good will when He had turned aside, and does not confess Him, as God, not to have been under the dominion of death, but to have put death to death through His own mortal flesh which He assumed, let him be anathema. For we believe that Life is life and does not lapse back into death. But do you know, and cut off, the things in which you have spoken iniquitously.
Nevertheless, may the grace of God be and remain with those who rightly preach the word of truth. HERE ENDS THE LETTER OF ASCLEPIADES, BISHOP OF TRALLES, TO PETER OF ANTIOCH. (79.) GELASIUS, BISHOP, TO THE BISHOPS THROUGHOUT DARDANIA. TO THE MOST BELOVED BRETHREN, ALL THE BISHOPS ESTABLISHED THROUGHOUT DARDANIA, GELASIUS THE BISHOP. As also to all the brethren throughout... (Here the manuscript apparatus notes variant readings: 'son' omitted in B; 'duality' in B and K; 'one nature' in V; 'divine nature' in V, 'one nature' in K, 'nature divine' in B; 'of Him' omitted in K; 'passible' in V and K, 'able to suffer' in B; and so forth—textual variants recorded by the editors.)
(Manuscript apparatus, continued, recording sigla and variant readings of witnesses B, V, K, the Berlin and Paris codices, and the editions of Caro, Baronius, the Councils, and Thiel; here too are noted the ending of one letter and the beginning heading concerning the letter of Gelasius, dated apparently to the year 493.) (Then the Greek:) ...for we also believe that Life is life and has not fallen away into death.
(Greek:) But do you know, and cut off, the things in which you have spoken lawlessly. May the grace of God be and remain with those who rightly divide the word of truth. (Latin heading:) IT WAS SENT TO DALMATIA. As soon as it is permitted to breathe again from the storm of continual wars, which the condition of the times has ceaselessly plied whether in those provinces or in these, we have deemed that all the Lord's priests throughout Dardania should be addressed, with the solicitude of a brotherly charity: first, because, having attained the governance of the Apostolic See amid public tumult—as has been said, which delayed us—we could not, by our own letters as the custom was, make known to you the office of the sacred stewardship committed to us, whereby your Fraternity might rejoice at the gift of the Lord's communion with us;
and next, that after so many bitter and burdensome worldly troubles, a mutual discourse might declare how we fared with one another; and lastly, that if there be any matters to be reported from ecclesiastical causes—which, on account of the snares of the perpetual enemy, must ever be watched with pastoral vigilance—we might disclose them by alternating communications. Moved by these considerations, therefore, we have taken care to direct the present writings by our brother and fellow-bishop Ursicinus, with the grace of a salutation going before, exhorting that, by the help of the Lord bravely enduring the devastation of transient things, we ought rather to be alarmed, lest—far be it—we incur the loss of everlasting life. Accordingly, let your Charity attend for a little while to the things which the profit of catholic truth requires to be forewarned against.
Among the Greeks, among whom it is not in doubt that many heresies abound, already some forty-five years ago a dispute arose concerning the incarnation of our Lord and Saviour, when one Eutyches, formerly a presbyter of Constantinople, broke out into blasphemies, through which he would say that we ought to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ only one—that is, solely—the nature or substance of divinity, the truth of the assumed flesh being utterly done away.
This impious and depraved fiction, akin to the Marcionists and Manichaeans, would without doubt wholly dissolve the mystery of our salvation—since, as much as the authority of venerable Scripture declares and the teaching of our elders testifies, it is certain that the Redeemer of the world, wholly God and wholly man at once, was begotten of the Virgin Mary as God, and stood forth conspicuous to this world; that thus He suffered and rose again from the dead is established; that He thus for forty days consorted with the disciples; that He ascended into heaven is clear in full light; and that in this manner He was said, with the angel bearing witness, to be coming to judgment—so that both the Son of Man, whom the blessed martyr Stephen saw standing at the right hand of the power of God, may appear manifest, and those persecutors of His whom they pierced may behold Him:
which assuredly cannot subsist without the material of human flesh, whose assumption has been glorified by the Godhead which was not itself assumed. Hence also the blessed apostle John says: He who denies that Christ has come in the flesh, this is antichrist; and the glorious apostle Paul, professing openly what manner of Lord Jesus Christ we ought this day also to believe, says: In whom dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily—by which brief text he at once overthrows, by heavenly preaching, both the Arian plague and this Eutychian one of which we have spoken; for there is nothing less where all and full divinity is declared to dwell, and by his expressing 'bodily' it is approved that our body persists in truth.