Sermons & Letters 151 part 2/2

v, 20). And since those born under the prejudgment of sin received power to be reborn unto righteousness, the gift of liberty was made stronger than the debt of servitude. Chapter IV. — What hope, then, do they leave for themselves in the safeguard of this sacrament, who deny the truth of human substance in the body of our Saviour? Let them say by what sacrifice they were reconciled, let them say by what blood they were redeemed. Who is it that delivered Himself for us, an oblation and a victim to God for an odour of sweetness (Eph. v, 2)? Or what sacrifice was ever more sacred than that which the true Pontiff placed upon the altar of the cross by the immolation of His own flesh? For although the death of many saints has been precious in the sight of the Lord (Ps.

cxv, 15), nevertheless the slaying of no innocent one was the propitiation of the world. The just received, they did not give, crowns; and from the fortitude of the faithful there were born examples of patience, not gifts of righteousness. For the deaths were single in single persons, nor did any one pay another's debt by his own end — since among the sons of men our Lord Jesus Christ alone stood forth, in whom all were crucified, all died, all were buried, all were also raised again. Of whom He Himself was saying: When I shall be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all things to Myself (John xii, 32). True faith also, justifying the impious and creating the just, drawn to a share of His humanity, acquires salvation in Him in whom alone man finds himself innocent;

having freedom through the grace of God to glory in His power, who, having engaged the proud enemy in the humility of our flesh, bestowed His victory upon those in whose body He triumphed. Chapter V. — Although, therefore, in our one Lord Jesus Christ, true Son of God and of man, there is one person of the Word and of the flesh, and both essences have their actions in common; yet the qualities of their several works are to be understood, and with the contemplation of sincere faith it is to be discerned to what the humility of weakness is advanced, and to what the loftiness of power inclines: what it is that the flesh does not do without the Word, and what it is that the Word does not effect without the flesh. For without the power of the Word the Virgin would neither have conceived nor borne (Luke i, 31):

and without the truth of the flesh the infancy wrapped in swaddling clothes would not lie there (Luke ii, 7). Without the power of the Word the Magi would not have adored the child made known by a new star (Matt. ii, 11): and without the truth of the flesh the child would not be commanded to be carried into Egypt and withdrawn from Herod's persecution. Without the power of the Word the Father's voice sent from heaven would not say, This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased (Matt. iii, 17): and without the truth of the flesh John would not testify, Behold the Lamb of God, behold Him who takes away the sins of the world (John i, 29). Without the power of the Word there would be no restoration of the weak and quickening of the dead: and without the truth of the flesh, neither would food be necessary to the fasting, nor sleep to the wearied.

Finally, without the power of the Word the Lord would not profess Himself equal to the Father, and without the truth of the flesh the same would not say that the Father is greater than He: since the catholic faith receives both, defends both, whereby, according to the property of the divine and human substance, it believes the one Son of God to be both man and Word. Chapter VI. — Although, therefore, from that beginning in which the Word became flesh in the womb of the Virgin (John i, 14), there never existed any division between the divine and human substance, and through all bodily increases the actions of the whole time were of one person; yet those very things which were done inseparably we confound by no commingling, but we perceive by the quality of the works what belongs to each form.

For neither do the divine things prejudge the human, nor the human the divine, since both so concur into the selfsame, that neither is the property consumed in them, nor is the person doubled. Let those phantastic Christians therefore say what substance of the Saviour was affixed to the wood, what lay in the sepulchre, and, the stone of the monument being rolled away, what flesh rose on the third day; or what kind of body Jesus, entering to the sight of the disciples with the doors closed against them, brought in: since, to drive away the diffidence of the beholders, He required the still-visible fixtures of the nails and the recent wound of the pierced side to be inspected with the eyes and handled with the fingers (John xx).

But if in so great a light of truth heretical obduracy does not relinquish its darkness, let them show whence they promise themselves the hope of eternal life, to which it cannot be attained except through the Mediator of God and men, the man Jesus Christ. For there is no other name given to men under heaven whereby we must be saved (Acts iv, 12): nor is there redemption of human captivity except in the blood of Him who gave Himself a redemption for all (1 Tim. ii, 6). Who, as the blessed Apostle proclaims, when He was in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal to God; but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, made in the likeness of men, and found in habit as a man.

He humbled Himself, being made obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. For which cause God also exalted Him, and gave Him a name which is above every name; that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, of things on earth, and of things under the earth, and every tongue should confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father (Phil. ii, 6–11). Chapter VII.

— Although, therefore, there is one Lord Jesus Christ, and in Him one wholly and the same person of true Deity and true humanity, and no solidity of this union can be sundered by any division, yet the exaltation whereby God exalted Him and gave Him a name which excels above every name, we understand to pertain to that form which was to be enriched by the increase of so great a glorification. For in the form of God the Son was equal to the Father, and between the Begetter and the Only-begotten there was no discretion in essence, no diversity in majesty; nor through the mystery of the incarnation had anything departed from the Word which the Father's gift might restore to Him.

But the form of a servant, through which the impassible Deity fulfilled the sacrament of great piety, is the human humility which was carried up into the glory of divine power, connected into so great a unity of Deity and humanity from the very conception of the Virgin, that neither were the divine things done without the man, nor the human things without God. Wherefore, as the Lord of majesty is said to be crucified, so He who from everlasting is equal to God is said to be exalted. Nor does it matter from which substance Christ is named, since, inseparably, the unity of person remaining, the same is both wholly son of man on account of the flesh, and wholly Son of God on account of the one Deity with the Father. Whatever therefore Christ received in time, He received according to the man, to whom the things He did not have are conferred.

For according to the power of the Word, the Son indifferently has all things which the Father has, and the things which in the form of a servant He received from the Father, the same in the form of the Father He too bestowed. The same is Himself both rich and poor (2 Cor. viii, 9). Rich, because in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. This was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was nothing made (John i, 1–3). But poor, because the Word became flesh and dwelt among us (Ibid., 14). But what is His self-emptying, or what His poverty, save the acceptance of the servile form, whereby, the majesty of the Word being veiled, the dispensation of human redemption was fulfilled?

For because the original bonds of our captivity could not be loosed, unless there should exist a man of our race and of our nature, whom the prejudices of the old debt did not hold, and who might wash away with His own immaculate blood the deadly handwriting (Col. ii, 14) — as it was from the beginning divinely preordained, so was it in the fullness of the appointed time accomplished, that the promise, signified in many ways, might come into a long-awaited effect; nor could that be ambiguous which by continual testifications had always been announced. Chapter VIII.

Now that so many heresies have been destroyed — heresies which through the holy devotion of the presiding Fathers were cut off from the body of catholic unity, and which for this reason deserved to be exiles from Christ, because they made the incarnation of the Word, which is the singular salvation of those who believe rightly, into a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence for themselves (1 Peter 2:8) — I marvel that your Charity should labour in discerning the light of truth.

And since it has been declared by many manifestations how rightly the Christian faith has condemned both Nestorius and Eutyches together with Dioscorus, and since no one can be called a Christian who lends his assent to the impiety of either the one or the other, I grieve that you (as I hear) resist the evangelical and apostolic teaching by stirring up cities with seditions, throwing the Churches into confusion, and inflicting not only injuries but even slaughter upon presbyters and bishops — so that in your fury and savagery you become forgetful of your own purpose and profession. Where is the rule of gentleness and quietness? Where is the long-suffering of patience? Where is the tranquillity of peace?

Where is the firmness of love and the fortitude of forbearance? What persuasion has led you away from the Gospel of Christ, or what persecution has separated you from it? Or what has been the deceiver's cunning so great, that forgetful of the prophets and apostles, forgetful of the saving Creed and of the confession which, proclaiming before many witnesses, you received the sacrament of baptism, you should subject yourselves to diabolical illusions? What use would the iron hooks have been to you, what use the savage torments, if to overthrow the integrity of your faith the empty fabrications of heretics have availed so much? You believe you are acting for the faith, and you are acting against the faith. You arm yourselves with the name of the Church, and you fight against the Church.

Is this what you learned from the prophets, this from the evangelists, this from the apostles — that, denying the true flesh of Christ and subjecting the very essence of the Word to suffering and death, you should make our nature alien to its own Restorer, and hold that all which the cross inflicted, which the lance wounded, which the stone of the sepulchre received and gave back, was solely the work of divine power and not also of human lowliness? Concerning which the Apostle says: 'For I am not ashamed of the Gospel' (Romans 1:16); for he knew what reproach was cast upon Christians by their enemies. And therefore the Lord also bore witness, saying: 'Whosoever shall confess me before men, him will I also confess before my Father' (Matthew 10:32).

For those were not worthy of the confession of the Son and the Father, to whom now the flesh of Christ causes shame; and they will prove themselves to have taken their strength from the sign of the cross too little, in that they blush to utter with their lips what they have received to be set upon their foreheads. Chapter 9. — Turn away, my sons, from these diabolical persuasions, turn away! No thing violates the Truth of God, but the Truth does not save us except in our own flesh. For Truth, as the prophet says, is sprung out of the earth (Psalm 84:12); and so the Virgin Mary conceived the Word in such a way that she ministered from her own substance the flesh to be united to Him, neither with the addition of a person nor with the emptying of the nature:

since He who was in the form of God so took the form of a servant, that one and the same Christ exists in both forms: God stooping down even to the weakness of man, and man advancing even to the heights of the Godhead, as the Apostle says: 'Whose are the fathers, and of whom is Christ according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen' (Romans 9:5). Very often have I exhorted your Charity by my letters to this care and diligence, that concerning those things which are transacted regarding the faith you should unceasingly keep my solicitude informed.

And although I do not cease to write on every occasion, yet to certain of my writings — that is, by means of our son the sub-deacon Rodanus, a member of the household of our son Asparacius, that most illustrious man, to whom they were given — I have received no reply from your Fraternity; as though the circumstances of the time did not allow you to indicate what has been done since my writings. And therefore by my son the count Rodanus I greet you with these letters; and I admonish you to neglect no opportunity of writing, so that the heat of my solicitude may be relieved. For since in you they possess a certain portion of my own Constantinopolitan concern, it is fitting, both for the sake of our common friendship and for the love of the whole Church, that you look forward with unceasing vigour, lest anything concerning the state of the faith should be able to escape my knowledge.

Therefore, by opportune representations strive that whatever I have written through the aforesaid persons, whether to the most glorious prince or to your Charity, may be most speedily carried into effect. And whatever, with God's help, shall have been arranged, let me know: so that, when those things which have been reasonably ordained are brought to fulfilment, the peace of the faith and the keeping of the canons may everywhere be held both more securely and more strongly. Given the seventh day before the Kalends of July, in the consulship of Opilio, a most distinguished man. Gladdened by the twin addresses of your Clemency, I write back with due giving of thanks, rejoicing in the mercy of God, who in the virtues of your providence has set up a most glorious protection both for the benefit of the Roman commonwealth and for the peace of the catholic Church.

Whence I am confident that this most salutary care of your piety in both respects will be so divinely aided, that full tranquillity may be granted both to the Christian religion and to your empire. That therefore in the provinces of Palestine the peoples of God have been recalled to the unity of the faith, and that, the disturbances of those in error being suppressed, the hearts of all have been directed to the evangelical and apostolic teaching — as you deign to indicate — and that at last it was permitted to my brother and fellow-bishop Juvenal to return to the seat of his priesthood, the people no longer resisting but even desiring it: this is the work of your faith, this is the fruit of your piety.

For its increase, throughout all the Churches of Christ, harmonious prayer is multiplied, that if any gloom still lingers in Egypt which has not yet received the rays of truth, it may through the prayers of the whole world receive the remedies of illumination, and no longer be burdened by the contagions of the execrable Dioscorus; and that in him the Lord's sheep may not, out of imprudent affection, love the pastoral person of one whom they have found by experience to have been a most savage devastator of morals and of faith. And therefore let your Clemency persevere in your holy and admirable zeal, so that if anything anywhere be found either sick or troubled, it may be restored both to health and to peace; for it is fitting that you should so preside over human affairs that you rejoice to serve the divine mysteries.

Given the fifth day before the Ides of January, in the consulship of Aetius and Studius, most distinguished men.