Letters (CSEL) 1 part 42/85

Moreover, in the books Peri Archon he attempts to persuade even this: that the living Word of God did not assume a human body; and, going against the sentence of the apostle, he wrote that he who was in the form of God, equal to God, was not the Word of God, but a soul descending from the celestial region and, emptying itself of the form of eternal majesty, taking to itself a human body. In saying which, he most openly contradicts John, who writes: 'and the Word was made flesh.' Nor can it be believed that it was the soul of the Savior, and not God the Word, that possessed the form and equality of the paternal majesty.

Into other impieties also he frenziedly exults, wishing that he who, at the consummation of the ages and in the destruction of sin, suffered once — our Lord Jesus Christ — should at some time also suffer the cross for the demons and for the spiritual wickednesses. Nor does he remember Paul writing: 'It is impossible for those who were once enlightened, have tasted also the heavenly gift, and are made partakers of the Holy Spirit, have tasted nonetheless the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, and have fallen away, to be renewed again unto penance, crucifying afresh to themselves the Son of God and holding him up to mockery.'

If he had wished to know these things — nay rather, if he did not despise the things he knows — he would never, contradicting the apostle, say that Christ was going to suffer also for the demons, and hold him up to mockery, passing by with closed ear, as we read: 'Christ, rising from the dead, dies now no more; death shall no more have dominion over him. For in that he died to sin, he died once; but in that he lives, he lives unto God.' For this word 'once' admits no second nor third; whence the apostle also, knowing that he is crucified once, affirms with all boldness to the Hebrews: 'for this he did once, offering up himself.' For these and very many other things, about which the epistolary discourse does not permit me to write, they were condemned and cast out of the Church.

And, with pride joined to folly, they contradict the judgments of the bishops, striving by sedition to defend their fellow-heretic, and, wandering astray through foreign provinces, the condemned have a condemned leader and are stirred up for this work. I beseech you therefore, dearest brothers, that if they come thither, you provoke them to tears by the evangelical precepts. It is our wish to correct by penance both them and others in error, and that they should live worthily of their name; that those who are called monks — if indeed they desire to be what they are called — may love silence and the catholic faith, to which nothing whatsoever is to be preferred. But, as I hear, imitating the devil, they run this way and that and seek whom they may devour with their impieties.

For they think madness to be faith, and audacity to be fortitude; and therefore, exalted into pride, they prefer to the ecclesiastical preaching the doctrine of Origen, which is mingled with idolatry. If therefore anywhere they attempt to disturb the brothers and the people committed to you, guard the flock of the Lord and repress their insane assaults. We have harmed them in nothing, we have taken nothing from them; there is one cause of their hatred against us — that we are prepared even unto death to defend the faith. The rest I pass over — how they attempted to bring death upon us.

And by what treacheries they contrived this — when, after they had been condemned, they even seized the church which is in the monastery of Nitria, that they might bar both us and very many bishops with us, and fathers of monks venerable both in life and in age, from entering it, having hired freedmen and slaves who, for the sake of the belly and the stomach, were armed for every crime! And when they held the more advantageous places of the church, as in the siege of a city, they concealed clubs and staves with palm branches, that under the insignia of peace they might dissemble minds prepared for slaughter.

And, that the faction might be the stronger and the wedge the readier for audacity, they distributed monies to many of the freeborn, who received them, not that they might consent to the crime, but that they might betray to us their attempts and lay open the prepared ambushes, that we might beware. And when the innumerable throng of monks perceived this, all began to cry aloud and to terrify the frenzy of the few with one accordant clamor, that at least out of fear they might allow the assembly to be gathered and the rights of the church to be preserved. And had not the grace of God restrained the assault of the multitude, something would have come to pass which is wont to happen in seditions;

For wicked men had burst forth into such rashness, nay into such madness, that the monks even of holy manner of life and ever most gentle could not endure their fury. All these things we have borne patiently and humbly in the hearing of God, providing for the salvation of those who were fighting against us as enemies, yet only on this condition, that we should surrender the rules of the Church and the right faith to no man's friendship; for the Lord is powerful to grant both to us and to all his servants in common, that we should prefer the truth of the faith to men's intimate ties.

And at the same time we also beg you, that each of you together with the peoples entrusted to you may pray more earnestly and implore God's mercy, that we, resisting the diabolical snares of the heretics, may have peace with those who have always fought for the truth, and may all together await the crown of righteousness. The brethren who are with you, and the people who are with me, salute you in the Lord. XCIII. (THE REPLY OF THE SYNOD OF JERUSALEM TO THE FOREGOING SYNODICAL LETTER OF THEOPHILUS.) To the lord and honourable, most blessed bishop Theophilus, from Eulogius, John, and the other bishops who were found at Jerusalem on the holy day of the Dedication.

You know, O lord and in all things praiseworthy father, even before our letter, that by the grace of Christ well-nigh all Palestine is free from the scandal of the heretics, except a few who, acquiescing in the errors of Apollinaris, ponder the harmful writings of their teacher. And would that, by the prayers of the saints, we were not disturbed by the Jewish serpents and the incredible folly of the Samaritans and the most open impieties of the heathen, whose crowd, exceedingly great and utterly stopping their ears to the truth of preaching, circling the flock of Christ after the likeness of wolves, cause us no small watches and toil, while we wish to guard the sheep of the Lord, lest they be torn to pieces by these!

And because your holiness has written to us that certain persons have been found in Egypt who, acquiescing in the doctrines of Origen, wish to introduce certain pestilential things into the churches and to deceive the hearts of the simple, we have deemed it necessary to signify to your holiness that preaching of this kind is foreign to our ears. For we have never heard men teaching that the kingdom of Christ is at some time to be ended — far be this from the ears of the faithful, since the angel Gabriel, speaking to Mary concerning him who is to be born, Christ, says: 'He shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever, and of his kingdom there shall be no end!'

— nor that the devil, freed from all the vices of sin, should obtain the dignity which he had before he fell, so that both he himself and Christ should be brought under one dominion of God the Father. For those who so believe are destined to go into the darkness which has been prepared for the devil and his angels. And if there be any who in their treatises have handed down that the Son, compared with us, is truth, but set beside the Father is a lie, and that Peter and Paul, they say, are what he is —

— compared to the Saviour, that is, the only-begotten Son and Word of God set beside the Father — and, that we may briefly declare our judgement, nor is it necessary to repeat the same things again, whosoever preaches these things which your blessedness signifies are to be condemned, and which are at variance with that faith which our fathers with pious understanding wrote down in the city of Nicaea: let both these men and their doctrines be anathema to the Church, together with Apollinaris, who, going against the holy Scriptures, says that an imperfect man was assumed by our Lord Jesus Christ, and that a full assumption was not made, nor was salvation given both to his soul and to his body.

For we, treading in the footsteps of the fathers and instructed by the voices of the Scriptures, teach and preach in the churches, and confess the Trinity to be uncreated, eternal, of one substance in three subsistences and in one Godhead ***. But if your reverence separates any from communion, whether on account of the perversity of their doctrines or on account of other causes, as you have deigned to indicate to us, know that they are not to be received in our churches, until you shall have granted pardon to their repentance, if indeed they be willing to condemn their perverse teachings. Salute all who are with you in the priestly order. XCIV. (LETTER OF DIONYSIUS, BISHOP OF LYDDA, TO THEOPHILUS.) To the most blessed lord Theophilus, from Dionysius, bishop of Lydda.

Our God is good, who is glorified in the councils of the saints and prepares for himself friends and prophets in every age; if you look upon the order of our generation, he has also raised you up, O most blessed lord and brother, as a zealot for the right faith, that you might both overthrow with apostolic vigour the heretical superstition flowing from the fountain of the heathen, and lead back to their shepherd the human race, which is drawn away by many errors, and the scattered flock of Christ — he who at the time of his passion gave his soul for all, that we might now, believing, be able to say: 'Truly God is in us.' For who is so foolish or so impious as to —

— would not confess that you have given the greatest gift to the world, in casting out the most wicked disciples of the blasphemous Origen, lest the Church of Christ be defiled by these men, whose cancer and incurable leprosy has so invaded the hearts of many, that even those who feign repentance join perjury to their heresy, and cease not to hate us because they are compelled to keep silence? Take courage therefore, and act manfully, O servant of God, and to the very end pursue the figments of Origen, lest the minds of the simple be caught by his flattering enticements under the shadow of knowledge, and there come to be a rending division in the body of Christ.

For all who savour the things that are above eagerly acknowledge you as their father, their hope, and the crown of the faith, because you have pierced through with the sword of the Gospel Arius, the master, and his disciple. The brethren of my little cell greatly salute you, and the brethren who are with you. XCV. LETTER OF POPE ANASTASIUS TO SIMPLICIANUS. To the lord brother Simplicianus, from Anastasius. A diligent shepherd is proved to keep great solicitude and watches over his flock; likewise a wary watchman from a high tower observes the affairs of the city by day and night; an attentive master of a ship in the hour of tempest suffers great tossing of mind from cares and peril, lest the ship be dashed upon the rocks by the storms and the fiercest waves.

With like mind our holy and honourable brother and fellow-bishop Theophilus does not cease to keep watch over the benefits of salvation, lest the people of God through the various churches, by reading Origen, fall into great blasphemies. Summoned by the letters of the aforesaid, I appeal to your holiness, that *** just as we, set in the city of Rome, which the prince of the apostles established and confirmed by his faith, the glorious Peter — lest anyone read contrary to the precept these things which we have named, we have condemned them, and with great prayers we have besought that the institutions of the Gospels be safe, which the authority of God and of Christ taught from his own mouth; from these we ought by no means to depart, but rather bring to mind that which Paul, the venerable apostle, foretold and admonished:

'If anyone shall have preached the gospel to you beyond what has been preached to you, let him be anathema.' Therefore, holding fast this precept, we have declared that whatever is contrary to our faith, once written by Origen, is foreign to us and punished. These things we have written to your holiness by the presbyter Eusebius, who, bearing the warmth of faith and having love toward God, has presented certain chapters of blasphemy, which we not only shuddered at and judged, but also — if there be any other things set forth by Origen — know that they, together with their author, are alike condemned by us. May the Lord keep you unharmed, O lord brother deservedly honourable. XCVI. THE PASCHAL LETTER OF S. THEOPHILUS THE BISHOP.

Christ Jesus, the Lord of glory, dearest brethren, let us again praise with harmonious voice, and, eagerly fulfilling the words of the exhorting prophet, who says: 'Sing to the Lord a new hymn,' let us who are all partakers of the faith that leads to the kingdom of heaven receive the coming of the holy solemnity, and celebrate the imminent festal days with the festivity of the whole world along with us, while one of the wise men cries: 'Go, eat your bread in gladness and drink your wine with a good heart, since your works have pleased God.' For those who are of good works, and, having put away the milk of infancy, receive the nourishment of more solid food, gaze more deeply upon divine meanings, and, filled with spiritual food, have God as the praiser and witness of their life.

To guests of this kind the Preacher (Ecclesiastes) speaks: 'At all times let your garments be white, and let oil not fail from your head,' that, clothed in the garment of the virtues, they may imitate the splendour of the sun, and by daily reading of the holy Scriptures may pour oil upon their sense and make ready the lamp of the mind, which, according to the precept of the Gospel, may give light to all who are in the house. Therefore let us, emulating such guests and those who so celebrate together the feasts of the Lord's passion, say with the holy man:

'I will praise the Lord in my life; I will sing to my God as long as I am,' and let us hasten to the metropolis of the angels, which is free and stained with no filth of malice, in which there are neither dissensions nor ruins nor migration from one to another; and, having trodden underfoot every pleasure and pressed down the waves of luxury which too often swell up against us, let us be mingled with the heavenly choirs, so that even now, translated thither in mind and beholding more august places, we may be what we are to be. Of which blessedness the Jews have made themselves unworthy, who, having forsaken the riches of holy Scripture and, poor in understanding, acquiescing in their teachers, hear even to this day: 'They always err in heart,' and who are unwilling to say to Christ present:

'Blessed is he that comes in the name of the Lord,' especially since with every voice the works, clearer than day, testify that he is God, and since he by no means says: 'Thus says the Lord,' but 'I say unto you,' whereby he shows himself to be the giver of the laws and the true Lord and God, and not merely some one of the prophets. For neither could the assumption of a servant's form obscure his divinity, which is circumscribed by no spaces of place, nor could the narrowness of a human body set bounds to the ineffable power of his majesty, whom the greatness of his works proves to be the Son of God.

For when he had restored to sudden calm the raised eddies of the raging sea and the surges swelling like mountains, the little ship of the apostles being freed from shipwreck, and the depths of the waters had felt the command of the Lord present; and when, with the winds struggling and the waves stirred up on every side, such perils had ceased at the Saviour's bidding — those who were sailing together, as if breathed upon by the divine Spirit, said: 'Truly he is the Son of God,' not doubting concerning the divinity whose greatness the works declared. For of him is the prophetic oracle: 'You rule over the might of the sea, and you press down the motion of its waves.'

And the prophet himself marks it with a song, so that not only in word but also in power he might be believed to be the true God who was seen, the excellence of his works showing forth that which lay hidden. Perfect God, of his own will assuming whatever was of human nature and condition, except sin alone and malice, which has no substance, he is born an infant, is adored as Emmanuel, the Magi come from the East, they confess the Son of God, God, with bended knee; at the time of his passion, hanging on the cross, he darkens the rays of the sun, expressing by a new and unheard-of miracle the greatness of his divinity, undivided and inseparable, nor by the error of certain men severed into two saviours. Whence also he spoke to the disciples: 'Do not call anyone master upon the earth;

for one is your master, Christ.' For neither, when he said these things to the apostles, did he separate the excellence of his divinity from the body which lay open to sight; nor, when he testified himself to be one Christ, the Son of God, did he divide soul and flesh, not one and another, but one and the same subsisting as both, God and man, while he is seen as a servant and is adored as Lord — since indeed in the lowliness of a human body he concealed the ineffable God, and again by his divine works surpassed the frailty of the flesh, so that he should not be believed to be merely some one of the saints, as has been supposed by very many, but he whom Paul also, wishing to show him, writes: 'One God, and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus'; and again:

'Now a mediator is not of one, but God is one' — because there is one Son, the mediator of the Father and of us, who neither lost his equality nor was separated from our fellowship, invisible God and visible man: as the form of a servant he is hidden, and as the Lord of glory he is proved by the confession of believers. For neither did the Father deprive him of the name of his own nature, after he was for our sake made man and poor, nor, when he was baptized in the river Jordan, did he call him by another appellation, but the only-begotten Son: 'You are my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.'

Nor was our likeness changed into the nature of the divinity, nor was the divinity turned into the likeness of our nature, but, remaining what it was in the beginning, God the Word, and glorifying us in himself, he did not come, according to Jeremiah, to say: 'Woe is me, mother, why did you bear me, a man to be judged and to be arraigned by all the earth? I have not profited, nor has anyone profited me,' he who had come to give liberty. Nor, according to Isaiah, did he cry out: 'Woe is me, because, being a man and having unclean lips, I dwell in the midst of a people having unclean lips, and I have seen with my eyes the King, the Lord of hosts.'

For he himself was the King of glory, as is written in the twenty-third psalm, existing as victor upon the gibbet and quelling the enemy's wars, that he might make the man fashioned from clay a dweller of the heavens and bestow on him the fellowship of his trophy. Therefore, however unwilling they be who suppose him to have been changed into another, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and for ever, never to have an end of his kingdom, according to the wicked error of Origen — lest, his kingdom ceasing, he be also deprived of eternity — but speaking before all: 'I am in the Father and the Father in me.' And, desiring to teach us that both the Father in the Son and the Son in the Father rule over all creatures, and confirming this very thing, he added:

'I and the Father are one,' lest anyone, on the occasion of the human flesh, divide the one kingdom of himself and of the Father. But if, according to the madness of Origen, Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, is at some time to lose his kingdom, how did he himself say to the apostles: 'I and the Father are one,' if he is not afterwards to hold one dominion, so that here he has the glory which he is there to lay down? And where will be that the Son is always in the Father and the Father in the Son, if the kingdom of the Son shall not be sure? But those who contend that these things are so — if indeed they do not repent — let them perish; and against these, moved by zeal of faith and piety, let Moses speak: 'Cursed are you in the city and cursed in the field,' the psalmist likewise rebuking:

'Let sinners fail from the earth, and the wicked, so that they no longer exist.' Indeed I cannot know with what rashness Origen, devising such great things and following not the authority of the Scriptures but his own error, dared to bring forth into public things harmful to all, and never reckoned that there would ever be any man who would go against his assertions, if he mingled the subtleties of the philosophers with his own treatises.

And, proceeding from an evil beginning into certain fables and ravings, he made Christian doctrine a game and a jest, by no means using the truth of divine teaching, but the arbitrary judgement of the human mind, and swelling, with himself as master, into such great pride that he did not imitate the humility of Paul, who, full of the Holy Spirit, conferred the gospel with the former apostles, lest perchance he should run or had run in vain — Origen not knowing that it is the prompting of a demonic spirit to follow the sophisms of human minds and to reckon anything, apart from the authority of the Scriptures, to be worth one thing. Let them at last be quiet, who, dreaming of an end of Christ's kingdom, desire to be the parasites of Origen's wordiness, and let them not, walking with the faithful, feign a faith which they do not have.

Rather let them learn that all deceit and fraudulence is one thing and shows another, so that it strives to conceal vices under the appearance of virtue. For indeed, when in the ignominy of the cross, which he suffered for us, Christ did not cease to be the Lord of glory, according to the blessed apostle — while the Jews cried against him: 'You who destroy the temple and in three days build it, save yourself; if you are the Son of God, come down from the cross' — and, suffering in the flesh and hanging upon the gibbet, he showed the strength of his own majesty, making the sun rest from its course and, by the greatness of the signs, wringing forth from the thief a voice full of faith: 'Jesus, remember me, Lord, when you come into your kingdom' — never after the glory of the resurrection will he lose his kingdom.

Even though Origen hurls countless stones of blasphemies against him. Or of what consequence is it to promise perpetuity of the kingdom to the disciples and to say: 'Come, blessed of my Father, possess the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world,' and himself to lack that which he bestows on others? Or how, when Paul writes to the Corinthians: 'Without us you reign, and would that you did reign, that we too might reign with you,' can Christ's kingdom be understood to be about to be ended after many times? Especially since John cries out: 'He who comes from above is above all,' and the apostle writes: 'Whose are the fathers, and from whom, according to the flesh, is Christ, who is God over all, blessed for ever.'

And so there is no doubt to anyone that he who remains God for ever likewise has also his kingdom, and over those very ones whom he has endowed with the possession of the kingdom is called perpetual king, having a dominion befitting his divinity, and nothing in himself rude or new except the assumption of human frailty. For if, according to the madness of Origen, after the cycles of many ages Christ's kingdom is to be ended, it is consequent upon his impiety to say that God too at some time ceases to be; and he who sets bounds to the kingdom is compelled to think the same concerning the divinity, which by nature possesses perpetuity of dominion.

But if the Word of God reigns, he is assuredly God, and by this reasoning it is gathered that whoever shall have attempted to impose an end upon his kingdom is brought to this, that he is compelled to believe Christ, and to cease to be God. But let the unlearned master babble these things with his impious followers; let us believe the kingdom of Christ to be eternal, and on the solemn day sing with the angel and say: 'Of his kingdom there shall be no end.' For if he is one with the Father, he will never cease from that which is one, and the union of the Father and the Son will never be divided into parts, nor will that which is called 'they are one' ever cease to be one.

Let therefore the most foolish of mortals depart, nay let them descend alive into hell, as the psalmist testifies, and, seeing their teacher of impiety to be there, let them cry out: 'You too are taken captive, as we also, and you are among the dead; your glory has descended into hell,' and the rest. Such a shepherd of a diseased flock everywhere assails Christ with insults and exalts the devil with honour, while he asserts that the latter, purged from vices and sins, is at some time to recover his former glory, and that this one is to cease to reign and to be brought together with the devil under the dominion of the Father — so that the prophet, wondering more at the blasphemies of Origen than at the outcry of the Jews, exclaims:

'The heaven was astonished at this and shuddered exceedingly, says the Lord, in that he has done two evils.' Origen, asserting that Christ ceases to reign and that the devil is to ascend to the summit from which he had fallen, digging so deep a pit of his own wickedness, which cannot hold water, makes the devil, as far as in him lies, equal to the Son of God, while he detracts from him the everlasting glory of the kingdom and subjects him with the demons under the Father's dominion. But let a voice of this impious kind be trodden down, and let us know that the kingdom of Christ is perpetual, he himself speaking to his disciples: 'You have continued with me in my temptations, and I will appoint for you an eternal testament, that you may drink and eat always at my table in my kingdom.'

How can that which is called 'always' be fulfilled, unless the kingdom be perpetual and to be closed by no end? Which the Magi also, understanding and turning to repentance, more earnestly enquired: 'Where is he who is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the East and have come to worship him.' The Magi confess Christ to be King, and Origen denies it, saying that he shall not reign in perpetuity, and does not perceive himself to be like to the blasphemies of the Jews. We read in the Gospel that, when the Lord and Saviour, showing the example of his strength and patience, ascended the cross, Pilate wrote a title and placed it above his head. And it was written: 'Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.'

This title many of the Jews read, which was written in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek. Therefore the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate: 'Do not write that he is King of the Jews, but that he himself said he was King of the Jews.' Pilate answered: 'What I have written, I have written.' Since therefore Pilate could be brought neither by sedition nor by entreaties to this, that he should remove the kingdom of Christ from the title, let Origen know that without any necessity he does that which the Jews did, in reckoning the kingdom of Christ to be ended. They indeed denied him to be king set upon the earth; this man strives, as far as in him lies, to detract from him reigning in heaven — so that he has Pilate as the accuser of his crime, who answered the Jews: 'What I have written, I have written.'