But these things have been said, not that the venerable Ibas believed ill concerning Christ, but concerning the very blessed Cyril; nor that the confession of a preacher concerning the Christian faith, but that the suspicion of a man concerning a man, displeases in his letter. For to what catholic can the natural difference between the temple and him who dwells within it be displeasing, since the Church of God so confesses that the Word was made flesh that it does not deny what is there subjoined, namely, that 'he also dwelt among us'? For the Word indeed was made flesh, because the eternal Son, who is the Word of the Father, himself in the fulness of times was made man;
but he dwelt among us, because his unchangeable divinity underwent no conversion, but remaining what it was, indwelt the assumed nature. And therefore, 'the Word was made flesh' assails the Nestorians; but 'and he dwelt among us' assails the Eutychians, or the Apollinarists their progenitors: because 'the Word was made flesh' signifies that there is one person; but 'he dwelt among us' signifies that two natures remained. For there cannot be two persons, when he who is the Word himself was also made flesh; nor can there fail to be two natures, when one is that which indwells, and another that which is indwelt.
But if anyone, not inclining to either side, should seek the matter without contention, he will find that the intention both of the holy Eastern Fathers—although they thought ill of the blessed Cyril—and of the blessed Cyril himself was always the same: namely, to teach that the one Lord Jesus Christ is perfect in two natures, that is, in divinity and in humanity; lest either two persons be believed, because there are two natures, or one nature be believed, because there is one person.
But it sometimes happens among men of one mind that, although they think the same concerning the very things which are in question, they nevertheless suspect something different about one another, either because what is conceived in the heart is too little laid open by the speaker in words, or because the intention of the speaker is too little perceived by the hearers. Now the impiety by which one believes ill of God must be distinguished from the ignorance by which anyone suspects otherwise about his neighbor, as man about man. And if perchance a man's suspicion about a man seems blameworthy, yet the intention is to be approved by which the truth of the faith which we hold concerning Christ is asserted.
Wishing to obscure this intention, those discoverers of a new diligence—how faithfully and simply they act!—when they had set down from that letter what was there said, 'For he too wrote in like manner to that man, that God the Word himself was made man,' leaped over what follows, 'as though there were no difference between the temple and him who dwells within it.' For what cause, do we suppose? Was it because these very few syllables would have caused prolixity? Or rather because they would manifestly have shown the intention of the speaker? O faith! O integrity! O conscience of those who rightly handle the word of truth! These men can assuredly say with the Apostle:
'We renounce the hidden things of shame, not walking in craftiness, nor adulterating the word of God, but by the manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every conscience of men in the sight of God' (2 Cor. 4:2). But in this also, their frauds having been detected and betrayed, attend, I beseech you, most serene emperor, how from the other things that follow it likewise becomes manifest that the most reverend Ibas, in his letter, spoke not against the faith which we hold concerning Christ, but understood too little the intention of the blessed Cyril in his chapters. For he goes on still further, saying, as the whole tenor of his letter has it:
'For he composed twelve chapters, which I think your reverence too has come to know, namely, that there is one nature of the deity and the humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ, and that, as he says, one ought not to divide the sayings which were spoken—those which either the Lord himself spoke concerning himself, or the evangelists concerning him.'
To whom would it not be apparent that, as has been said, it was not the mystery of Christ's incarnation, but the intention of the blessed Cyril, that the most reverend Ibas understood too little—he whom, like the other Eastern Fathers and like those very Acephali who pretend to venerate him, he judged to have proclaimed one nature of the deity and the humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to have said that one ought not to divide according to natures the sayings which were spoken, those which either the Lord himself spoke concerning himself, or the evangelists concerning him? Finally, they even demanded this of him through the venerable Paul of Emesa, that he should most openly confess it in writing: which the venerable Ibas too narrated in the same letter of his, where he spoke concerning the holy John of Antioch:
'After he had received the emperor's letter, he sent the most holy and most reverend Paul, bishop of Emesa, writing through him the true faith, and charging him that, if Cyril should consent to this faith, and should anathematize those who say that the deity suffered, or who say that there is one nature of the deity and the humanity, he should hold communion with him.' Indeed, since the blessed Cyril, having received the embassy of the Easterns, hastened rather to fulfill what was demanded of him by his fellow-priests than to make a sufficient purgation of his own sayings in which they had taken offense, he was for this reason supposed, as though having condemned his former error, to have been converted by the admonition of the Easterns:
since that man, desirous of recovering unity, was unwilling to dwell upon the defense of his own sayings, lest, while he should contend long to prove that those things were not said by him, as was supposed, concerning which those who understood too little thought otherwise, no end should be put to the controversy by this dissension. This same thing the most reverend Ibas showed by those words in which he subsequently reported that the same blessed Cyril consented without weariness to the faith of the Easterns, and embraced it, and anathematized all who should believe apart from this. But is it a Nestorian crime to have supposed the blessed Cyril converted?
Let those, therefore, who have called this letter Nestorian answer us, whether to divide into two persons the one God and man Jesus Christ, through whom all things were made and who was made among all things, or to have supposed Cyril his servant converted, ought to be called the Nestorian heresy. We greatly excuse Nestorius, if we say that his heresy consists in this, that he supposed Cyril converted. Hence, if the synod of Chalcedon too were on this account to reprove this letter as Nestorian, it would rather hence seem to have excused Nestorius—which is the very thing we likewise promised to demonstrate.
But that religious synod ought not so to have lightened the most grievous crime of Nestorius, which had well recognized that the blasphemy from which this heresy received its name is something far other. That heresy empties out the mystery of the divine incarnation, in which our salvation consists; that heresy speaks of one subsistence of the man, another of God, so as to estrange from God the human nature which in its own first-fruits was healed by the Word assuming it. But it perceived the letter of Ibas most evidently confessing what those men feared to touch: namely, that although there are two natures, yet there is one power, one person, which is the one Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Wherefore, if anyone calls this letter Nestorian, he without doubt affirms, together with the Eutychians, against the Church, that it is Nestorian to proclaim one person of Christ in two natures; for there is no other reason now why the Eutychians defame the Church and call Christ's faithful Nestorians, except that they confess that there are two natures of the one Son our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore let those who restrain heretics not feign that they condemned the letter of the venerable Ibas as Nestorian for the reason that he said the blessed Cyril was converted. For even if this is to be blamed, it nevertheless does not belong to the Nestorian crime:
since rather the abettors of heretics are proved to have pronounced it Nestorian for this reason, that its writer confessed therein that there are two natures of Christ. Nor let them now say that he blamed the faith of the blessed Cyril, which they can by no means prove. First, indeed, because after the union made between the Easterns and himself he approves his faith. Then, because even before the union, he accuses not the faith which Cyril truly held, but the faith which he supposed him to have held.
But he supposed, as we have already proved that the words of his very letter testify, that the blessed Cyril had thus proclaimed God the Word to have become man, so that there was no difference of natures—that is, between the temple and him who dwells within it—but that there was one nature of the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ. Whoever, therefore, says that the most reverend Ibas in his letter accused the faith which the blessed Cyril truly held, and not the faith which he supposed him to have held, that man assuredly confirms that the same blessed Cyril so proclaimed God the Word to have become man that there was no difference of natures, but that one nature of divinity and humanity was made. For this is what the most reverend Ibas blamed through his letter.
Who, then, affirm the blessed Cyril to be a heretic? Is it we, who say that Ibas the bishop did not accuse his faith, or those who say that he did accuse his faith? For we, who say that he did not accuse the faith of the blessed Cyril, certainly deny that the same Cyril took away the difference of natures and said that one nature was composed of divinity and humanity. But the abettors of heretics, who say that Ibas censured the faith of Cyril, themselves without doubt affirm the assertions of the Eutychians, who say that the blessed Cyril did not believe in the difference of natures, but taught that one nature was made out of divinity and humanity.
Wherefore, if the synod of Chalcedon too were to believe that the most reverend Ibas censured the faith which the blessed Cyril held, and not rather the error into which it had supposed him to have fallen, it would without doubt itself also affirm that Cyril proclaimed there to be one nature of Christ. You see, therefore, religious emperor, that what we have said is taught again: namely, that if that great synod were to reject this letter as blaming the faith of the blessed Cyril, hence rather the blessed Cyril himself would seem to have been believed a heretic. Hence the abettors of heretics tried to persuade us also to affirm this, lest there should remain anything by which we might be able to answer the Eutychians, whom they restrain, when they say: You who have said that the letter of Ibas is Nestorian,
let it be said to be the letter of any other man you please, who supposed it heretical to deny the difference of natures and to believe in one nature of the deity and the humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ. How, by your own judgment, are you not Nestorians, who likewise say that it belongs to heretics to deny the difference of natures and to believe in one nature of the deity and the humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ? Or how can you now say that the blessed Cyril taught the difference of natures, and did not rather say that there is one nature of the deity and the humanity, since for this reason you condemned that letter, that it blamed his faith—the faith which is found to have blamed this in him, that he denied the difference
of natures and taught one nature of the deity and the humanity? And therefore we neither condemn that letter, nor say that it blamed the faith of Cyril: because what it blamed was not the faith of Cyril. For most truly it is full of all impiety to take, for a confusion of natures, what the evangelist said of him who was born of the temple, that is, of Mary: 'In the beginning was the Word'; or to believe of the deity of the Only-begotten, which can neither be increased nor diminished, that according to its own nature it was made a little lower than the angels—just as in one and the same man we say that the inner man is formed after the image of God, while the outer, according to the lineaments of his members and the diversity of sex, is created from the slime of the earth.
But the blessed Cyril is never shown to have supposed that the temple, which took its beginning from the Virgin Mary, is the same in nature as the Word who is God, who was in the beginning without beginning. For this the Apollinarists thought; this the demented Eutychians drew from the Apollinarists; and if Cyril too thought this, it would most truly be said that he had fallen, and was found to have lapsed into the dogma of Apollinaris. But now we do not believe this to be true, for the reason that he is not proved ever to have thought it.