Hence, since the Eutychians can be appeased neither toward the great synod nor toward Theodore, however many such passages from his books are brought forward, let us rather show that he said some such thing as they suppose to agree with their own error. For by these things which have been recounted, and by others of this kind, they could not be calmed: because it is not, as they pretend, on this account that they hate either him or the Council of Chalcedon—namely because he proclaimed two sons, for this is plainly false—but rather because he most evidently said that there are two natures of one Son.
And therefore, since, as we recounted in the first book, these same Eutychians or Semi-Eutychians are wont to say that the one nature of Christ is composed of divinity and humanity, just as the one human nature also is composed of soul and body, let us show them where Theodore also says that, just as the soul united to the body makes man out of both, so out of the united form of God and form of a servant—that is, divinity and humanity—Christ is one. For thus perhaps those who did not spare him as a catholic will spare him at least as their own, that is, as a Eutychian or Semi-Eutychian, and will cease to accuse the great council which did not condemn him.
Yet he indeed set this down not for the unity of nature, but for the unity of person, just as did other Fathers, whose examples these men wrongly use. For the nature of God the Word, which is simple and inviolably simple, could not be compounded. He says therefore in the fourth book against Apollinaris: 'Since among us too man is said to consist of soul and body, and we say that these are indeed two natures, soul and body, but one man composed of both; in order that we may preserve that both are one, it would be necessary to confound the natures, and by converting them to say that the soul is flesh, and the flesh is soul.
And since the one is indeed immortal and rational, but the flesh mortal and rational, by converting them we would say that the immortal is mortal, and the mortal immortal; and the rational irrational, and the irrational rational. But neither have we been taught this from divine Scripture, O wisest of all men, nor does anyone else say it, down to this present day, of those who have a sound human mind, except you, who in all things are demented—you who have received the dispensation that was made for our sake, from the discourse concerning the assumption of the mind, into judgment upon the mind itself, speaking things full of utter folly, and with much irreverence establishing laws.
For whatever things are in some respect distinct, yet in some respect have received unity, they keep unimpaired the principle by which they are distinct, and they have unity entire. Some one thing there is by nature, as the Son and the Father; yet the distinction of persons remains: the essence indeed existing inseparably as one, the persons have their own proper distinction; so that neither is the Father called Son, nor the Son Father. Likewise, even if certain things are diverse by nature, but in another respect it has befallen them to be united, they neither lose their natural division, and they have their own proper unity—just as the soul is united to the body, and one man is made out of both. The division of the natures remains: the one is soul, the other flesh;
and the one indeed is immortal, the other mortal; and the one rational, the other irrational. But the one man is both: yet neither of the two by itself is ever called 'man' absolutely and properly, except perhaps with some addition, as 'the inner man' and 'the outer man'—not absolutely 'man,' but inner and outer—so that it may appear that one thing is the more interior part of man, the other the more exterior. So also in the Lord Christ we say, O wonderful one, that, existing in the form of God, he is the form of a servant, neither the one assuming being that which is assumed, nor that which is assumed being the one assuming. But the unity of the assumed with regard to the one assuming is inseparable, in no way able to be severed.
Now therefore, as we have said, let them spare Theodore at least as a Semi-Eutychian, and not accuse the synod, which could not adjudge one accused neither beforehand nor before itself: especially since he says that, just as the inner man and the outer man—that is, the soul and the body—although they are not of one nature, nevertheless make one person. What more subtle or more express confession of unity, moreover, can there be than that which is thought to show not only that Christ is one, but even that his nature is one? Yet this very thing he did not shrink from, in order to express the unity of the person. But just as in saying this he is not to be believed the head of the Acephali, since he says this not for the denial of the two natures, but rather for the assertion of one person:
so neither is he to be believed the author of the Nestorian error, where, repelling the confusion of the natures, he divides their properties more fully out of the necessity of answering the heretics; since he does not do this against the unity of the person. Hence let the Semi-Eutychians recognize with what intention it is said by other Fathers—whom they think to have denied Christ to be in two natures—that, just as the soul and the body make one man, so out of divinity and humanity Christ is one: namely that this is said by them not for the unity of nature, but rather for that of person; since even Theodore, whom they slander as a Nestorian and yet cannot deny to have proclaimed Christ in two natures, uses this very comparison, which they suppose to befit their own madness.
It is evident therefore to the wise how the truth everywhere confronts those who flee from it, and in whatever direction they turn aside, they find it resisting them to their face. For from what quarter would it not come to meet them, whom it confounds even out of their own accusation? For while they flee from his doctrine which he taught through the Council of Chalcedon, that there are two natures of the one God Christ, they charge either him, or Theodore whose praises were there recited, with the Nestorian heresy, supposing that one nature of Christ is to be confessed. And this they strive to build up from the fact that the holy Fathers said, that just as of soul and flesh there is one man, so in divinity and humanity Christ is one.
Suspecting therefore that this was said by them for the assertion of one nature, and not rather, as the truth holds, for the assertion of one person, they do not deny it to be altogether contrary to the Nestorian error, and therefore, as we have said, they are refuted by their own arguments. For so far was that comparison of the union of soul and flesh, made by the holy Fathers, from being applied as a proof of the one nature of Christ, that even Theodore used it—he whom they say to have believed not only two natures, which is true and manifest, but also, which is false, two persons of Christ: so that he should use this comparison by which they suppose the holy Fathers to have taught not only one person, but also one nature of Christ.
But just as concerning the soul and flesh of one man it is said—which we had promised to show—that the division of the natures remains, and the one is indeed soul, the other flesh, by nature certainly, not by person, since the one is rational, the other irrational, for the one man is both: so likewise wherever, especially before the error of Nestorius was made public, we find it said by certain doctors of the catholic Church that the one assuming is other, and the one assumed is other, we must understand it not of another person or subsistence, but of nature, just as in one man one is called the inner, the other the outer man—if we are willing neither to err ourselves, nor to slander these men, nor to disparage the Church of Christ, in whose peace and honor they died:
nor to grant authority to the Nestorian error, so that Nestorius should be said to have proclaimed things similar to those who merited the greatest praise from the judgment of the Church. And that such a thing should be believed by the faithful, the truth by no means allows—the truth which without doubt refutes the calumnies of the slanderers out of others of their sayings, in which they have evidently spoken of the unity of the person of Christ. For it is not, as the ignorant suppose, or the adversaries pretend, Theodore alone who spoke thus, but many other Fathers as well, whose examples worthy of being followed we set forth, as we promised:
in which we wish to test the liberty of the Eutychians or their satellites, and the zeal for the faith which they display in the matter of Theodore against the Council of Chalcedon—whether they will dare to pronounce heretics also those men themselves (not to say more), speaking thus. For they spoke thus in the Church of Christ, as men secure, with no question of Nestorius troubling them, not so as to divide the unity of the person of Christ, which Theodore too professes to be inseparable, and in no way able to be severed.
And it is exceedingly gratifying that the empty and mutually self-destroying calumnies of these men—who say both that he believed in one person of the Trinity, and that he proclaimed a quaternity by asserting two sons—he himself reciprocally repels at once, the one by the repulsion of the other; since from the things we have recounted he teaches that, just as the Father and the Son are indeed of one nature, but are not of one person, so in man the one soul and the body, or in Christ God and man, are indeed of one person, but are not of one essence; because neither is the form of God the form of a servant, nor is the form of a servant the form of God, although the unity of the person remains inseparable, in no way able to be severed.