Gregory to Quiricus the bishop, and to the other catholic bishops in Iberia. Since to charity nothing is far off, let a letter join those whom places divide. The bearer of the present letter, therefore, coming to the Church of the blessed Peter, prince of the Apostles, asserted that he had received letters from your Fraternity, and had lost them in the city of Jerusalem together with other goods as well. In them, as he himself says, you were concerned to inquire whether the priests and peoples who have been confounded by the error of the Nestorian heresy, when they return to the catholic Church, the mother of all the elect, ought to be baptized, or rather to be joined to the bowels of that same mother Church by the confession of the true faith alone.
And indeed we have learned from the ancient institution of the Fathers that whosoever are baptized among heretics in the name of the Trinity, when they return to the holy Church, are to be recalled to the bosom of the mother Church either by the anointing of chrism, or by the imposition of the hand, or by the confession of faith alone. Whence the West restores the Arians by the imposition of the hand, but the East by the anointing of holy chrism, to the entrance of the holy catholic Church.
But the Monophysites and others it receives from the true confession alone, because the holy baptism, which they obtained among the heretics, then receives in them the power of cleansing, when either those receive the Holy Spirit through the imposition of the hand, or these, on account of the confession of the true faith, are united to the bowels of the holy and universal Church. But those heretics who are by no means baptized in the name of the Trinity—such as the Bonosiaci and the Cataphrygians, because the former do not believe Christ the Lord, and the latter, by a perverse understanding, believe the Holy Spirit to be a certain depraved man, Montanus (of whom many others are alike)—when they come to the holy Church, they are baptized, because
that was not baptism which, being set in error, they received in no wise in the name of the holy Trinity. Nor can this very thing be called a repeated baptism which, as has been said, was not given in the name of the Trinity. But the Nestorians, because they are baptized in the name of the holy Trinity—yet, like unto Jewish faithlessness, not believing in the Incarnation of the Only-begotten, the error of their heresy darkens them—when they come to the holy catholic Church, are to be taught concerning the firmness and confession of the true faith, that they may believe one and the same Son of God and of man, God our Lord Jesus Christ, existing in divinity before the ages, and Himself made man in the end of the ages, because the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us (John
1:14). But we say the Word was made flesh, not by losing what He was, but by assuming what He was not. For by the mystery of His Incarnation the Only-begotten of the Father increased our estate, but diminished not His own. Thus the Word and the flesh are one person, as He Himself says: No man ascends into heaven, save He who descended from heaven, the Son of man who is in heaven (John 3:13). He who is the Son of God in heaven was the Son of man who was speaking on earth. Hence John says: We know that the Son of God is come, and has given us understanding (1 John 5:20). And having said what understanding He has given us, he straightway subjoined: That we may know the true God. Whom does he here intimate to be the true God, save the Father Almighty? But what he also holds concerning the Almighty Son he has added:
And that we may be in His true Son Jesus Christ. Behold, he says the Father is the true God, and His Son Jesus Christ the true God. What he holds His true Son to be, he shows more openly: This, he says, is the true God and life eternal. If therefore, according to the error of Nestorius, the Word were one and the man Jesus Christ another, then He who is true man would certainly not be true God and life eternal. But the Only-begotten Son, the Word before the ages, was made man. He therefore is the true God and life eternal. Assuredly, when the holy Virgin was about to conceive Him, and heard the angel speaking to her, she said: Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according as you say (Luke 1:38). And when she had conceived Him, and went to Elizabeth her kinswoman, she straightway heard from that same Elizabeth:
Whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? Behold, the same Virgin is called both the handmaid of the Lord and His mother. The handmaid of the Lord, indeed, because the Word, the Only-begotten before the ages, is equal to the Father; but His mother, because in her womb He was made man of the Holy Spirit and of her flesh. Nor is she the handmaid of one and the mother of another, because while the Only-begotten of God, existing before the ages, was born man from her womb, by an unsearchable miracle she became both the handmaid of the man through His divinity, and the mother of the Word through His flesh. Nor was the flesh first conceived in the womb of the Virgin, and afterward the divinity came into the flesh; but as soon as the Word came into the womb, at once the Word, His own virtue of nature being preserved, was made flesh.
And a perfect man, that is, in the truth of flesh and of a rational soul, was the Only-begotten Son of God born through the womb of the Virgin. Whence also He is said to be anointed above His fellows, as the Psalmist says: God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your fellows (Ps. 44:8). He was indeed anointed with oil, namely with the gift of the Holy Spirit. But He was anointed above His fellows, because we all first go forth as sinful men, and afterward are sanctified through the anointing of the Holy Spirit. But He Himself, who existing as God before the ages, was conceived man through the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin in the end of the ages, there was anointed by the same Spirit where He was conceived. Nor was He first conceived and afterward anointed;
but this very thing, to be conceived of the Holy Spirit from the flesh of the Virgin, was itself to be anointed by the Holy Spirit. Let all, therefore, who return from the perverse error of Nestorius, confess this truth of His nativity before the holy assembly of your Fraternity, anathematizing the same Nestorius with all his followers, and the other heresies. Let them also promise that they receive and venerate the venerable synods which the universal Church receives;
and let your Holiness, without any hesitation, receive them into your fellowship, their own orders being preserved to them, so that while you both examine the hidden things of their mind by your solicitude, and teach them by true knowledge the right things which they ought to hold, and by gentleness cause them no contrariety or difficulty concerning their own orders, you may snatch them from the mouth of the ancient enemy; and by so much may the recompense of eternal glory increase for you before Almighty God, by as much as you gather many who shall glory with you in the Lord without end. May the holy Trinity, therefore, praying for us, keep you by its protection, and grant you in its love yet more manifold gifts.