Anti-Arian Works 6 part 9/24

But if you should see anyone confessing indeed the one nature of the Father and of the Son, yet proclaiming another substance of the Holy Spirit—so that he says the Son is equal to the Father, but asserts the Holy Spirit alone to be lesser—that man does not hold the truth of the Catholic faith, but follows the error of perfidy born of Macedonius. Accordingly, since he is not a Catholic Christian, but a Macedonian heretic, he is to be rejected by all the faithful. CHAP. XIV. On the truth of the human nature in Christ. — 23. Now attend to a few things concerning the mystery of the Lord's Incarnation. For Christ the Son of God, who professes himself to be the Truth, just as he is true God, so he is true man:

in whom, as there is the fullness of the divine nature, so there is also the fullness of the human substance. For in him is the natural truth of divinity, the natural truth of the rational soul, and the natural truth of the flesh; and by this the natural divinity is common to him with the Father, while the natural humanity is common to him with the Virgin Mother. CHAP. XV. The heresy of the Manichaeans. — 24. If, therefore, anyone so proclaims the true divinity in Christ that he strives to deny his true flesh, he is not a Catholic Christian, but a Manichaean heretic, since Christ himself said to his doubting disciples: 'Handle and see, for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as you see me to have' (Luke 24:39). CHAP. XVI. The error of the Photinians.

Christ is the Mediator of men on account of his sharing in both natures. — 25. Again, if anyone so proclaims in Christ the truth of the soul and of the flesh that he is unwilling to accept in him the truth of the deity—that is, one who so calls Christ man that he denies him to be God—he is not a Christian, but a Photinian heretic. For Christ, just as according to true divinity he is God the Creator of men, so according to true flesh he is Mediator of God and men. For he would in no way be Mediator if he had not either the nature of divinity with the Father, or the substance of flesh and soul common with men.

But in this the man Christ Jesus is the true Mediator of men, in whom he both naturally had from the Father the form of God (by which he might save us), and received from the Virgin the form of a servant (which he might save in us). But man could never receive from God the grace of salvation, if in the one person of Christ the communion of the divine and human nature did not remain. CHAP. XVII. Two natures in the one person of Christ the Mediator. The two natures in Christ are neither confounded nor do they constitute two persons. The contrary errors of Eutyches and Nestorius. — 26. The truth of Christ, therefore, just as it has the natural truth of divinity from the Father, so it has the natural truth of humanity from the Virgin.

For the only-begotten God deigned to become in the womb of the Virgin the receiver of human flesh and soul, that he might be the Saviour of human flesh and soul. He is one, in whom there is a twofold, inseparable, and unconfusable nature, and one person of both natures: in regard to whom two other heretics again, holding views contrary to one another, are known to have brought in (or, established) diverse errors, namely Nestorius and Eutyches. Nestorius indeed, because he acknowledged there to be two natures in Christ, attempted to proclaim two persons in him, and thus, having a heart blinded by the darkness of falsehood, did not hesitate to join to the Christian faith the lie of his perfidy.

For the true faith, just as it truly proclaims two natures in Christ, so it altogether denies two persons in him. But Eutyches, rightly believing one person in Christ, was perversely seen to proclaim one nature in it, whereas the true faith at once so acknowledges in Christ the property of both natures that it understands one person of divinity and humanity. CHAP. XVIII. Sabellius. Arius. Manes. Photinus. — 27. For Christ is one, who 'in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.' Who also was made 'the Word made flesh, and dwelt among us.' Hereby the Sabellian is overcome, because in that the Word was with God, it is shown that the person of the Father is one, of the Son another.

Hereby also the Arian is overcome, because in that the Word was God, it is shown that the nature of the Father and of the Son is one. For to show the property of the person it avails that the Son alone is called the Word; but to show the communion of the one nature it pertains that, just as the Father is called God, so also the Son is named God. Hereby too both the Manichaean is confounded, and Photinus, in that it is said: 'And the Word was made flesh.' For in the name of the Word the true divinity is recognized, and in the name of the flesh the true humanity is found: so that Christ the Son of God may be recognized both as true God and true man, in the natural truth of each name;

and thus, neither may the Manichaean dare to proclaim false flesh in him, nor may Photinus be able to take away from him his natural deity. CHAP. XIX. Nestorius and Eutyches are refuted from the Apostle. The two substances in the one Christ have remained unconfused, nor has the person been doubled. — 28. For Nestorius and Eutyches are convicted by the apostolic words: the former, that he may acknowledge that the one person of Christ cannot be doubled; the latter, that he may know that the twofold nature of Christ cannot be confounded. For this same Christ is one, of whom the Apostle says that which has already been set forth above: 'Whose are the fathers, and of whom is Christ according to the flesh, who is over all things, God blessed for ever' (Rom. 9:5).

Here, full of the Holy Spirit, he showed both the one person of Christ and the twofold nature. For in saying, 'Of whom is Christ according to the flesh, who is over all things blessed for ever,' just as by the name of God and of flesh he undoubtedly shows the truth of each nature, so by the one name of Christ he teaches one person of divinity and humanity. For Christ, who is of the fathers according to the flesh, is himself over all things God blessed for ever. The nature which the Son of God has from the Father is not confounded with that nature which the same God took from the Virgin.

But neither did Christ ever have two persons, because the same only-begotten God was both born of the Father according to divinity, and proceeded from the Virgin according to the flesh. And he who as the Word was born God of God, the same Word made flesh proceeded like a bridegroom from his chamber (Ps. 18:6). He is one, who, the property of each nature being preserved, was both crucified out of weakness, and lives by the power of God. CHAP. XX. The conclusion of the book, exhorting to the diligent reading of the writings of the Saints. — 29.

These things, dearest son, I have transmitted to you in accordance with your holy desire and love, from which a taste of instruction may be afforded you, and from this taste there may grow in you a longing for more extensive reading, so that you may be able to profit the more, with God's help, the more diligently you begin to seek out the sayings of the holy Fathers, and to review what you have found more frequently and more attentively. Whence there may accrue to you, with God's help, the grace of fuller knowledge, by which you may be able not only to retain the true faith, but also to convict the deadly falsehood of heretics, believing and firmly holding one nature and three persons in the Trinity, God, and one person and two natures in the only-begotten Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ. EPISTLE IX.

Victor to Fulgentius, earnestly imploring his prayers and sending the sermon of Fastidiosus the Arian to be refuted. To the most blessed lord, to be ranked equal in apostolic merits, to the holy father FULGENTIUS the bishop, from VICTOR. 1. The divinely-appointed time for the desired matter has come, in which our petition may obtain its effect. For it would have been a wrong that I, who had myself frequently asked your beatitude to answer the cunning contrivance, should delay you who are willing; for among the most honourable characters whatever is promised by delaying is generally reckoned a falsehood. But your beatitude recognizes this with us better than I: it was not done by will, but the distance of the various regions had brought the hindrance; by which we are led hither and thither to no purpose;

where no benefit for eternal life and salvation is found, but rather the mind is called away from that very benefit of the future life which ought to be sought; so that, when it is time by the prompting of a diabolical fear, none of us is at all permitted to do anything that may profit toward eternal salvation. 2. For we are clothed with the various covetings and desires of this world, which suddenly vanish like smoke, and incurably our attention so serves the enticements of this age that, as if we were to live unchangeably in this world, we take no thought at all concerning the future eternity, or the peril of life or death, which is on either side:

but we are busy only with that which we know will be present to our desires in this present time. For however great a benefit accrues to our will, we count it little, according to that saying of blessed Cyprian: 'What else in the world is waged daily but a battle against the devil? And a little after there follows: If avarice is laid low, lust rises up; if lust is suppressed, ambition succeeds; if ambition is despised, anger provokes, pride puffs up, drunkenness invites, envy breaks concord, jealousy cuts off friendship' (from the book On Mortality, a little after the beginning), and so forth. That venerable man, seeing clearly the soul to be wounded daily by so many darts of the enemy:

whence not one's own strength, but divine mercy alone shall be able to deliver. 3. Therefore we tearfully beseech that, on behalf of us together with all those whom you have acquired for the Lord, and whom, snatched from worldly squalor, you have caused to be converted to the spiritual life, you may deign to entreat his mercy, that he may show us the light of his mercy, that he may not take vengeance for our sins, that we may not die in our transgressions, that we may be stripped of the snares and fetters of the enemy, that he may not rejoice to have gained a soul which the Lord has redeemed with his own blood.

But this we most earnestly beseech, that you may join our supplication to your just prayers, and our groanings to your holy weepings, that by your intercessions we may deserve to bring back the support of the future life, that we who are dead in sins may rise again by your holy prayers. For otherwise the prophet Elisha could not have raised the lifeless corpse, unless, restraining the outlines of his limbs, he had made himself equal to the body (2 Kings 4:3-4). His greatness diminished itself a little, so that while he kissed the dead, he might apply a poultice to the soul, and restore the boy alive. One lays himself down, and two rise up; and suddenly he is restored unharmed to his mother, who came to life again by another's spirit.

And I likewise trust that by your intercession I shall be restored alive to Mother Church, I who seem to be held by the sting of death through my burdening sins. For I know that in the youthful age of your life, many years ago, you sought the salvation of our soul, and very often besought the Lord concerning this matter, that he might rescue me from the temptations of this life. And because, still weighed down by the mass of sins, I have not been able to merit it, this I beg, that by assiduous supplications you may deign to entreat the Lord on our behalf, that by whatever order or time he may obtain pardon for our transgressions. 4.

And lest our tearful and long-continued prayer should breed weariness in the feelings of your paternity, this again is to be asked of us, that a swift effect may follow your promises;

and against the malignant work of that man who, disdainfully despising the spiritual life of venerable monks—and reckoning it, according to the world, as most worthless—boasts that he has flown up and reached even to the cedars of Lebanon (whose name, unless I am mistaken, I seem to have expressed rather plainly through the order of the words in the verse above), whose treatise I have forwarded, who, from words begged from here and there, has been seen to bark against the right faith and Catholic truth, and, as it were wounding both the Homoousians (which he called us to be) and the Donatists with the darts of his objections, afterward claimed the Catholic name for himself, as your paternity will diligently perceive from the reading. Wherefore we ask that from the honeyed fountain of your paternity the vanity of that man may be refuted;

and against the serpent who is his author—from whom this man, feeding on evil grasses, was seen to sprout a certain, as it were, new error—may there be present a lucid response, and may every wickedness devised against God be suppressed, lest those who read him should reckon that he has said anything right against the faith of doctrine. Let the cunning of the ancient serpent be confounded, because he has gathered to himself such preachers by the various enticements of seditions and pleasures; and scatter its viperous and venomous three-forked tongue by your holy responses. He who was discharging the office not of a teacher, but rather of a flatterer of the falsehood of that time. Let the fabrication which he left to his posterity, as you respond, vanish from their minds, whereby he wished to war against the mystery of God.

Therefore we ask that in this matter, with the Lord's help, you may extend the merit of good fame and your genius, illustrious to all. And since the present heat seeks some fresh things, I have boldly expressed the desire of my mind, possessed by the love of ancient familiarity; and just as you shine before the other priests in the minds and eyes of beholders, so we desire that you appear, more resplendent by your flowery little works, both to us and to all nations. 5. Relying on this pious love, unlearned in matters, I have written: thirsting with too great an ardor, I have eagerly run to the fountain of skill and doctrine with my rustic eloquence.

Whence we desire that our thirst and inexperience may be satisfied, so that not only may I deserve to obtain the reward of the future life—just as, at the very front of the letter, I sought the solaces of your prayers—but also that we may rejoice that satisfaction has in all things been made to this work: so that not only we, but also the devotion of all our fellow servants, your sons, who depend upon you with pious affection, and who expect this of you together with us, may render thanks to the divine gift together with them. And we ask that you pardon our rusticity, you who yourself commanded that I should dare these things.

And although either scanty or no learning of a teacher has imbued us, there comes in addition that, if we retained anything conceived in our hearts, being entangled with other occupations, we have almost lost the use of the Latin tongue, according to that saying: 'Our breasts do not admit two cares.' But pray that the Lord may grant and bring to pass what we wish. Guide, therefore, and adorn the servant whom you have nourished, and bestow the doctrine which you have more frequently taught. May the eternal Godhead guard your beatitude praying for us, which we desire, O lord Father. THE SERMON OF FASTIDIOSUS THE ARIAN. We say, most prudent brethren, that which the Godhead deigns to bestow upon our littleness. God is the author of justice and of life, nay rather he himself is our justice and our life.

He made man neither for sin nor for death; as Scripture says, 'God made not death, neither hath he pleasure in the destruction of the living' (Wis. 1:13). What then? Death befell man, whom God had made. For it is said to be, not of the Creator, but of the devil the deceiver. Therefore, after man was deceived by the devil—man who willingly wrought iniquity, unwillingly ran into death—he transgressed unjustly, and was punished justly. But God, when he had seen these two things in man, guilt and death—the one which man had wrongly done, the other which he had justly borne;

since man was held bound by these two most powerful chains, he commanded that the Lord Christ should take flesh—not that in which he might become a debtor as a sinner, but that in which, without the debt of sin, he might undeservedly bear death for the debtors. Not that the Son of God might be bound by the bond of iniquity, but that sinful man might be loosed from the bond of iniquity. This is what the Apostle says: 'Great is the sacrament of godliness, which was manifested in the flesh, was justified in the spirit, appeared to angels, was preached unto the Gentiles, is believed in the world, was taken up in glory' (1 Tim. 3:16).

And truly, most learned Christians, what greater piety could there have been than that, for carnal men, the Son of God, obeying the Father's command, should take on human flesh, and that Life should bear death for mortals? and that he who before the ages is born, founded by the Father, should in the last time be born of the Virgin? that he who gives life to the world should lie dead in the tomb? With how many tears, therefore, is it now to be lamented, or with how great an affliction of heart to be mourned, that very many even until now are unwilling to abandon the stubbornness of their most hardened obstinacy, while they desire indiscriminately to be enslaved to a hurtful supposition.

They who in no way acquiesce in the saving remedies, or cast away the will of correction, opposing hostile hands to the vital words as to medicinal instruments, wound themselves in that very place where they ought to have been cured, and turn the force of spiritual medicines against themselves; whence they increase the putrefaction of their wounds in that very place where they might have obtained health. For a twofold error has crept in of old, which hitherto, binding the souls of the lost, does not allow them to breathe toward the seeking of truth. With the Homoousians asserting an inseparable and indivisible Trinity, that the Son was not less than the Father, nor was the Father the unbegotten maker of his own Son;

and with the Donatists likewise preaching that the good are polluted by communion with the wicked, while they cast far away the gift of holy Scripture, the remedy of salvation. Among whom Holy Mother the Catholic Church is known to chant with a Davidic murmur, as we have just now sung in the psalm: 'Lord, lead me in thy justice because of my enemies' (Ps. 5:9). For I am led in thy justice, while I believe thee, almighty God, unbegotten and uncreated, to be the maker of thy Son the Lord Jesus Christ, John the Baptist bearing witness: 'After me cometh one who was made before me' (John 1:15). And Peter the apostle preaching and saying: 'Let all the house of Israel know most certainly, that God hath made both Lord and Christ, this same Jesus, whom you have crucified' (Acts 2:36).

Solomon also, first declaring in the person of Christ: 'Before the ages he founded me' (Prov. 8:23). Behold, Scripture testifies as made, created, and founded him whom the sacrilegious detest thus to believe. Likewise they assert, as was said above, an inseparable and indivisible Trinity. And if the Son, of whom the evangelist says, 'The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us' (John 1:14), his divine power being for a little while veiled, alone entered the chamber of the virginal womb, then without doubt he is separated from the Father and the Holy Spirit. But the Trinity could in no way be separated from one, which, according to their own absurdity, is agreed to be by no means divided.

Therefore did the whole Trinity assume flesh? Did the whole Trinity feel the injuries of the passion? Did the whole Trinity lie in the tomb? Did the whole Trinity penetrate the lower regions? Did the whole Trinity rise from the dead on the third day? Did the whole Trinity ascend into the heavens on the fortieth day? And at whose right hand does the whole Trinity sit? Or what Spirit did the whole Trinity send upon the apostles on the day of Pentecost? Or to what God could the whole Trinity say in heaven: 'God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?' (Ps. 22:1)? Or to what Father did the whole Trinity say: 'Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit' (Luke 23:46)? Let them declare it, if they can. But if they cannot say it, they slay themselves with their own darts, who contend that the Trinity is inseparable.

The Donatian vanity, indeed, does not consider that the benefit of baptism was conferred upon men for this reason: that they who are originally weighed down by others' errors, being relieved by the help of healing grace, might thereafter bear only their own; and that not the communion of the sacrament, but consent, should condemn each one of sin. Since, just as the Lord says he will requite the sins of the parents unto the third and fourth generation, because the earthly and carnal nativity is shown to be liable to original guilt: so in another place he testifies that, as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is his own, that the second and heavenly nativity may be known to be wholly absolved from others' sins. For he immediately adds: 'The soul that sinneth, the same shall die' (Ezek. 18:20).

With this saying the admonition of Solomon agrees, and shows that the one is not weighed down by the sins of the other: 'Son,' he says, 'if thou be good, it shall be to thee and to thy neighbours: but if thou turn out evil, thou alone shalt drink up the evils' (Prov. 9:12). And so the Catholic faith, shunning the precipices of every error, and, with the Lord leading it back, walking the way of the heavenly journey, chanting with sober belief, says: 'Lord, lead me in thy justice because of my enemies' (Ps. 5:9).

And thereupon, imploring from the Father through the Son the Holy Spirit, and by the straightness of the way — the faculty of walking in which she has obtained by his freely-given gift — just as she confesses that those not yet baptized are liable not only to their own sins but also to the sins of others, since she knows that they were conceived in iniquities, so too she asserts that those washed in the font at their new birth are unharmed by another's iniquity, provided that the assent of their own will is not held bound in the crime. For 'as many as believed in him,' says John the Evangelist, 'he gave them power to become the sons of God, to those who believe in his name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God' (John 1:12-13).

Therefore, just as those brought forth of the will of the flesh and of the will of man contract another's sins, although they do not yet have any of their own, so those born of God, if there be in them no fault of their own will, are sprinkled with no injury of another's iniquity. For as the first birth by generation fastened on the child that which, being born, he did not do, so the second birth, once original sin is washed away, imputes as guilt only that offense which lies in the will alone. In this part, then, we ought to be set apart from evildoers, in which, keeping the firstfruits of the Spirit, we, buried together with Christ, have risen again in baptism.

In which also we put off the old man, who is corrupted according to the desires of error, by the grace of God preventing and accompanying us, that we may put on the new man, who according to God is created in the justice and in the holiness of charity. Through the Lord. LETTER 10. Scarila sets before Fulgentius two questions, one concerning the Incarnation of the Son of God, the other concerning the author of vile animals. To the holy and most blessed lord, to be reckoned equal to apostolic merits, to father Fulgentius the bishop, your servant Scarila. 1. The desires of the unlearned greatly long for the learning of your paternity; for it is written: 'Ask your father, and he will declare to you; your elders, and they will teach you' (Deut. 32:7);

and because what we cannot understand we desire to know through the teaching of your holiness. 1. While at the table of the sons of your Catholic Church, discourse arose about the Incarnation of God, one of us asserted concerning this Incarnation that it was not God the Father but God the Son who put on flesh; and another said: God himself, who is one in three, deigned to assume flesh, that he might lead to liberty our servitude, in which we were held bound through the transgression of our father Adam. 3. And we desire to know whether God the Father himself descended and assumed flesh; or whether, while he himself remained seated, he commanded by the Word that it should assume flesh.

since we know that the Word was made flesh, that he himself might dwell among us; but that between the Word, who is God, and the Father, who is God, one and the same majesty of both descended to put on flesh, for we read: 'This is our God, and no other shall be counted beside him; afterward he was seen on earth, and conversed with men' (Baruch 3:36-38). And when we brought this testimony forward into the midst, he too spoke against it thus: 'He said this of the Son, not of God the Father'; and I for the present said:

Since we are alike in equal ignorance of this, let us have recourse to the holy father Fulgentius the bishop, to whom God has deigned to grant the knowledge of so great a power, that he may by the unfolding of the divine Scriptures point out to our unlearnedness the way in plain speech. Wherefore, commending myself to your holy prayers, I beseech, through him who has endowed your holiness with such great grace, that as a good father you would bid us be instructed in what we do not know, and that you would flood us from that fountain whence all who thirst are filled. 4. And when the discourse was finished, another of us said that flies, fleas, and scorpions, or any of the fouler animals that are called bedbugs, God did not make, but that after the casting down of that unworthy angel the devil, all these were made by the devil himself;

and when we said that God made all things, and these very good, he said that we ought to consult your holiness also on this point, that you yourself might bid the matter be satisfactorily settled: whether these things were made before the transgression, when God made all things, or after the transgression of Adam. Pray for us, holy and most blessed father. LETTER 11. Ferrandus the deacon sets before Fulgentius two questions, concerning the salvation of an Ethiopian catechumen, baptized when already by the force of illness he was out of his mind, and who died without having received the Eucharist. To the most blessed lord, to be received with all veneration, to father Fulgentius the bishop, Ferrandus the deacon, greeting in the Lord. 1.