Sermons & Letters 175

CHAPTER I. — I remember that I promised, venerable Emperor, in the cause of the faith, concerning which I know your clemency to be piously solicitous, that a fuller discourse of my humility should be directed to you; which now, with the Lord's help, I discharge on a faithful occasion, so that instruction useful to the holy zeal of your piety may not, so far as I judge, be wanting. For although I know that your clemency has no need of human instructions, and has drawn a most sincere doctrine from the abundance of the Holy Spirit, yet it is my office both to make plain what you understand and to proclaim what you believe: so that that fire which the Lord, coming, cast upon the earth (Luke 12:49), stirred by the movement of frequent meditation, may so grow warm that it burns, and so be kindled that it gives light.

For the Eutychian heresy has striven to bring great darkness upon the regions of the East, and has attempted to turn away the eyes of the unlearned from that light which, as the Gospel says, shines in the darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not (John 1:5). And although it has fallen back into its own blindness, now in its disciples it breaks out afresh what failed in its author. CHAPTER II. — For at no long interval of time was the catholic faith, which is singular and true, and to which nothing can be added, nothing taken away, assailed by two enemies: of whom the former, Nestorius, and the latter, Eutyches, emerged, who wished to bring upon the Church of God two heresies contrary to one another:

so that each was justly condemned by the preachers of truth, because what both held in their various falsehood was exceedingly mad and sacrilegious. Let Nestorius therefore be anathematized, who believed the blessed Virgin Mary to be the mother not of God but only of a man, so as to make one person of the flesh, another of the Deity; and did not perceive one Christ in the Word of God and the flesh, but separately and disjointedly proclaimed one Son of God, another son of man;

whereas, while that immutable essence of the Word remained, which is timeless and coeternal to Him with the Father and with the Holy Spirit, the Word so became flesh within the virginal womb that, through an ineffable mystery, by one conception and one birth, according to the truth of each nature, the same Virgin was both the handmaid and the mother of the Lord. Which Elizabeth also, as Luke the evangelist declares, understood and said: 'Whence is this to me, that the Mother of my Lord should come to me' (Luke 1:43)? Let Eutyches also be smitten with the same anathema, who, rolled about through the impious errors of the ancient heretics, chose the third dogma of Apollinaris:

so that, denying the truth of human flesh and soul, he asserted that our whole Lord Jesus Christ was of one nature, as though the Deity of the Word had itself converted itself into flesh and soul; and that to be conceived and born, to be nourished and to grow, to be crucified and to die, to be buried and to rise again, and to ascend into heaven, and to sit at the right hand of the Father, whence He shall come to judge the living and the dead, belonged to the divine essence alone, which receives none of these things in itself without the truth of flesh: since the nature of the Only-begotten is the nature of the Father, is the nature of the Holy Spirit, and is at once impassible, at once immutable — the undivided unity and consubstantial equality of the everlasting Trinity.

Whence, if any Eutychian departs from the perversity of Apollinaris, lest he be convicted of holding the Deity to be passible and mortal — and yet dares to pronounce one nature of the incarnate Word, that is, of the Word and the flesh — he manifestly passes over into the madness of Valentinus and Manichaeus, and believes that the mediator of God and men, the man Jesus Christ, did all things in mere semblance, and that not a human body in Him, but a phantom appearance of a body, appeared to the eyes of the beholders. CHAPTER III.

— Since the catholic faith has long detested these lies of impiety, and the sacrileges of such assertions were long ago condemned throughout the whole world by the concordant judgments of the blessed Fathers, there is no doubt that it preaches and defends this faith which the holy Synod of Nicaea confirmed, saying: 'We believe in one God the Father almighty, maker of things visible and invisible. And in one Lord our Jesus Christ, the Son of God, born the Only-begotten of the Father, that is, of the substance of the Father, God of God, light of light, true God of true God, born, not made, of one substance with the Father (which the Greeks call homoousion), through whom all things were made, both those which are in heaven and those which are on earth.'

'Who for us and for our salvation came down, was made incarnate, and was made man, suffered, and rose again on the third day. He ascended into heaven, and is to come to judge the living and the dead. And in the Holy Spirit.' In which profession there is most evidently contained what we too confess and believe concerning the incarnation of the Lord, who, in order to reform the salvation of the human race, did not bring down with Him from heaven the true flesh of our frailty, but assumed it in the womb of the Virgin mother. CHAPTER IV.

— Whoever therefore are so blinded and so alien from the light of truth as to deny to the Word of God, from the time of the incarnation, the truth of human flesh, let them show in what they claim for themselves the Christian name, and by what reasoning they agree with the Gospel of truth, if either flesh without Deity or Deity without flesh arose from the birth of the blessed Virgin. For just as it cannot be denied, since the evangelist says, that the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14), so it cannot be denied, since Paul the apostle preaches, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself (2 Cor. 5:19). But what reconciliation could there be, by which God might be made propitious to the human race, unless the mediator of God and men took up the cause of all?

But by what reasoning could He fulfill the truth of a mediator, unless He who in the form of God is equal to the Father were in the form of a servant also a partaker of us: so that the bond of death, contracted by the transgression of one, might be loosed by the death of one who alone owed nothing to death? For the shedding of the blood of Christ for the unjust was so rich in ransom that, if the whole company of the captives should believe in their redeemer, no chains of the devil would retain any of them: since, as the Apostle says, where sin abounded, grace did much more abound (Rom. 5:20). And when those born under the prejudgment of sin received the power of being reborn to righteousness, the gift of liberty was made stronger than the debt of servitude. CHAPTER V.

— What hope, then, do they leave for themselves in the safeguard of this mystery, who deny the truth of a human body in our Savior? Let them say by what sacrifice they were reconciled; let them say by what blood they were redeemed. Who is it, as the Apostle says, that gave Himself for you, an oblation and a victim to God for an odor of sweetness (Eph. 5:2)? Or what sacrifice was ever more holy than that which the true and eternal High Priest laid upon the altar of the cross by the immolation of His own flesh? For although the death of many saints was precious in the sight of the Lord (Ps. 116:15), yet the slaying of no innocent one was the redemption of the world.

The just received crowns, they did not give them; and from the fortitude of the faithful were born examples of patience, not gifts of righteousness. For single deaths were suffered by single men, nor did any one pay another's debt by his own end: since among the sons of men one alone, our Lord Jesus Christ, stood forth, who was truly the immaculate Lamb, in whom all were crucified, all died, all were buried, all were also raised up. Of whom He Himself said: 'When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all things to myself' (John 12:32). For true faith, which justifies the impious and creates the just, drawn to a partaker of His humanity, acquires salvation in Him in whom alone man finds himself innocent:

having it free, through the grace of God, to glory in the power of Him who, engaging in the humility of our flesh against the enemy of the human race, bestowed His victory upon those in whose body He triumphed. CHAPTER VI. — Although therefore in the one Lord Jesus Christ, the true Son of God and of man, there is one person of the Word and of the flesh, which inseparably and undividedly has its common actions, yet the qualities of the works themselves are to be understood; and it must be discerned, by the contemplation of sincere faith, to what things the humility of the flesh is advanced, and to what the loftiness of the Deity inclines: what it is that the flesh does not do without the Word, and what the Word does not effect without the flesh.

For without the power of the Word the Virgin would neither conceive nor bring forth, and without the truth of the flesh the infant would not lie wrapped in swaddling clothes. Without the power of the Word the Magi would not adore the child, declared by the guiding star; and without the truth of the flesh the child would not be commanded to be carried into Egypt and withdrawn from the persecution of Herod. Without the power of the Word the voice of the Father sent from heaven would not say: 'This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased' (Matt. 3:17); 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 1:29). 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 for the fasting, nor sleep for the weary.

Lastly, 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 was greater than He (John 14:28): whereas the catholic faith receives both, defends both, which, according to the confession of blessed the apostle Peter, believes the one Christ, the Son of the living God (Matt. 16:16), to be both man and the Word. Although therefore from that beginning in which the Word was made flesh in the womb of the Virgin (John 1:14), no division at any time existed between the two forms, and through all the bodily increases the actions of the whole time were of one person;

yet those very things which were done inseparably we in no way confound by any mingling, but we discern of which form each thing is from the quality of the works. CHAPTER VII. — Let the hypocrites therefore sing forth — those who with blind minds will not receive the light of truth — in what form of the cross Christ, the Lord of majesty, was affixed to the wood, what lay in the tomb, and, the stone of the monument being rolled away, what flesh rose again on the third day, and in whom, after His resurrection, He rebuked certain disbelieving disciples and refuted the hesitation of the doubting, when He said: 'Handle and see, for a spirit has not flesh and bones, as you see me to have' (Luke 24:39): and to the apostle Thomas:

'Put your hand into my side, and see my hands and feet, and be not unbelieving, but believing' (John 20:27)? By which manifestation of His body He was even then destroying the lies of the heretics: that the whole Church of Christ, to be imbued with doctrines, might not doubt that this was to be believed by itself, which the apostles had undertaken to preach. 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 as blessed Peter the apostle says, 'There is no other name given to men under heaven, in which we must be saved' (Acts 4:12);

nor is there redemption of human captivity except in His blood, who gave Himself a redemption for all (1 Tim. 2:6), and who, as the blessed apostle Paul preaches, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, made in the likeness of men, and found in fashion as a man. He humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also has exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name: that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, on earth, and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father (Phil. 2:6-11).

CHAPTER VIII. — Since therefore the Lord Jesus Christ is one, and in Him there is wholly one and the same person of true Deity and true humanity, yet the exaltation by which, as the teacher of the Gentiles says, 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 had anything departed from the Word through the mystery of the incarnation which might be restored to Him by the Father's gift.

But the form of a servant, through which the impassible Deity fulfilled the mystery of great piety, is the human humility which, raised into the glory of the divine power, is from the very conception of the Virgin so joined together in such unity of Deity and humanity, that neither were the divine things done without the man, nor the human things without God. Wherefore, just as the Lord of majesty is said to be crucified, so He who from everlastingness is equal to God is said to be exalted: because inseparably, the unity of person remaining, one and 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 were conferred.

For according to the power of the Deity the Son too has indifferently all things which the Father has, and the things which He received from the Father in the form of a servant, the same He also gave in the form of God. For according to the form of God, He and the Father are one (John 10:30); but according to the form of a servant, 'He came not to do His own will, but the will of Him who sent Him' (John 5:30). According to the form of God, 'As the Father has life in Himself, so He gave to the Son also to have life in Himself' (ibid. 26); according to the form of a servant, 'His soul is sorrowful even unto death' (Matt. 26:38). And the same is He, as the Apostle preaches, both rich and poor. Rich, because, as the evangelist says:

'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God: the same was in the beginning with God: all things were made through Him, and without Him was made nothing' (John 1:1-3). But poor, because for our sakes the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us (ibid. 14). But what is His self-emptying, or what His poverty, save the acceptance of the servile form? through which, the majesty of the Word being veiled, the dispensation of human redemption was fulfilled. CHAPTER IX.

— For since the original bonds of our captivity could not be loosed unless there existed a man of our race and of our nature, whom the prejudgments of sin did not hold, and who might blot out with His own immaculate blood the deadly handwriting, so — as had been from the beginning divinely foreordained — it was accomplished in the fullness of the appointed time: that the promise signified in many ways might come to the long-awaited effect, nor could there be any ambiguity in what had ever been announced by continual testifications. But the impiety of the heretics shows itself to be engaged in a great sacrilege, when, under the appearance of honoring the Deity, they deny the truth of human flesh in Christ;

and they think it is piously to be believed, if it be said that in our Savior that which saves is not true, whereas thus, according to the promise running through all the ages, the world is reconciled to God in Christ, so that unless the Word deigned to become flesh, no flesh could be saved. For the whole mystery of the Christian faith is discolored with great obscurity (as the heretics would have it), if the light of truth is thought to have lain hidden beneath the falsehood of a phantasm. Let no Christian therefore think it a thing to be blushed at, concerning the truth of our body in Christ:

because all the apostles and disciples of the apostles, and all the illustrious doctors of the Churches who deserved to attain to the crown of martyrdom or to the glory of confession, shone in the light of this faith, thundering everywhere with concordant judgments that in the Lord Jesus Christ one person of the Deity and of the flesh is to be confessed. But by what likeness of reason, by what portion of the divine volumes, does heretical impiety think itself to be aided, which denies the truth of Christ's body, since neither does the law testify to this, nor prophecy foresing it, nor the Gospels teach it, nor has Christ Himself ceased to show it?

Let them search through the whole series of the Scriptures, to find whither they may flee from their darkness, not whereby they may obscure the true light, and through all the ages they will thus find the truth flashing forth, that they may see this great and wondrous mystery believed from the beginning, which was completed in the end. And since no part of the holy writings is silent about it, it is enough to have set down certain good signs of the truth, by which the diligence of faith may be directed into a most splendid breadth, and by the sincere light of understanding may perceive that in the Son of God, who unceasingly professes Himself the son of man and man, it is a thing not to be blushed at for Christians, but most constantly to be gloried in. CHAPTER X.

— But that your piety may recognize that they do not agree with the preachings of the venerable Fathers, I have believed that some of their judgments should be subjoined to this discourse. If you deign to review them, you will find that we preach nothing other than what our holy Fathers throughout the whole world have taught: nor that anyone differs from them, save only the impious heretics.

These things therefore, most glorious and venerable Emperor, having been touched upon with as much brevity as I could, you will recognize that our preaching also is united with the faith divinely inspired in you, and that we differ in nothing from the evangelical and apostolic doctrine, or from the symbol of the catholic profession; since, as the blessed apostle Paul teaches, 'Great is the mystery of piety, which was manifested in the flesh, justified in the spirit, appeared to angels, was preached to the nations, was believed in the world, was received up in glory' (1 Tim. 3:16). What therefore is more useful to your salvation? what more befitting your power? than that you should provide by your constitution for the peace of the Churches of the Lord,

and defend God's gifts among all who are subject to you, nor by any reasoning suffer, through the envy of the devil, his ministers to rage to the destruction of anyone: so that you who in this temporal world are eminent in reign, may in eternity deserve to reign with Christ. Given on the sixteenth day before the Kalends of September, in the consulship of the Augusti Leo and Majorian. CHAPTER III. — This therefore is the one immovable foundation, this the one blessed rock of faith, confessed by the mouth of Peter: 'You are,' he says, 'the Christ, the Son of the living God' (Matt. 16:16); sustaining in itself as many arguments of truth as the questions of perversities and the calumnies of infidelity shall be moved. Now in the rest is the dispensation of the paternal will:

the Virgin, the birth, and the body, and after these the flesh, death, the underworld — these are our salvation. For on account of the human race the Son of God was born of the Virgin and of the Holy Spirit, He Himself serving Himself in this operation, and His own power — that is, God's — overshadowing, He sowed for Himself the beginnings of a body, and established the origins of flesh: that, made man of the Virgin, He might receive in Himself the nature of the flesh, and through the fellowship of this admixture the body of the whole human race might exist sanctified in Him: that, just as all might be founded in Him through that whereby He willed Himself to be corporeal, so again He Himself might be referred into all through that which is His invisible.

The invisible image of God therefore did not refuse the purer beginning of a human origin, and through conception, birth, wailing and the cradle, He passed through all the contumelies of our nature. What worthy thing at last shall be repaid by us for the affection of so great a condescension? The one only-begotten God, unspeakable from His divine origin, inserted into the form of a little human body in the womb of the holy Virgin, grows. He who contains all things, and within whom and through whom are all things, is brought forth by the law of human birth; and He at whose voice the archangels and angels tremble, at which heaven and earth and all the elements of this world shall be dissolved, is heard in the wailing of infancy. He who is invisible and incomprehensible is now wrapped in the cradle-clothes of mortals, to be seen, felt, and touched.

If anyone regards these things as unworthy of God, he will confess himself bound by so much the greater a benefit, in proportion as these things less befit the majesty of God. He who was made man had no need of the man; but we had need that God should become flesh and dwell in us, that is, that by the assumption of one flesh He might inhabit the whole of flesh from within. His humility is our nobility; His reproach is our honour. What He, God, is while abiding in flesh, that we in turn become, renewed from flesh into God. He knows nothing at all, he knows not his own life, who is ignorant that Christ Jesus is both true God and also true man; and it is a matter of equal peril to deny that Christ Jesus is either the Divine Spirit or the flesh of our body.

'Everyone therefore,' He says, 'who shall confess Me before men, I also will confess him before My Father who is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny Me before men, him will I also deny before My Father who is in heaven' (Matt. x, 32). These things the Word made flesh was speaking, and the man Jesus Christ, the Lord of majesty, was teaching: He Himself the mediator, constituted in Himself for the salvation of the Church, and by that very mystery of a mediator between God and men existing as one being who is both, since, the natures being united in Him into one selfsame, in Him the reality of each nature is the same: yet so that He lacked neither in the other; lest perchance by being born He should cease to be God as man, and again as man He should not be God while abiding.

This, then, is the true faith of human blessedness: to proclaim God and man, to confess the Word and the flesh; neither to be ignorant that God is man, nor to fail to recognise that the flesh is the Word. The only-begotten God, therefore, having been born man of a Virgin, and according to the fulness of times about to advance in Himself the man into God, held to this manner throughout the whole of the Gospel discourse: that He should teach Himself to be believed the Son of God, and admonish that He be proclaimed the son of man; speaking and doing as man all things that are God's, then speaking and doing as God all things that are man's; yet so that in that very discourse of both kinds He never spoke except with signification both of the man and of God.

From this, then, arises for heretics an occasion of deceiving the simple and the ignorant, so that what was said by Him according to the man they falsely allege to have been said according to the weakness of the divine nature; and because it is one and the same who speaks, they contend that all He was speaking about Himself He spoke as God. Nor indeed do we deny that the whole of that discourse belongs to Him who remains of His own nature. But if Jesus Christ is both man and God, and neither was He God only when He first became man, nor when He was man was He not also God, nor after being man was He not wholly man in God, wholly God, then it is necessary that the mystery of His sayings, which is that of their kind, be one and the same. And when you distinguish in Him the man from God according to time, then distinguish also the speech of God and of the man.

And when you confess God and man in time, discern the sayings of God and of the man in time. But when you understand it from man and God, then again perceive the time of the wholly man, the wholly God already. If anything was said for the demonstration of that time, fitting to the time the things that were said—so that one thing is God before the man, another is man and God, another is after the man and God wholly man and wholly God—do not confound by times and kinds the mystery of the dispensation, since according to the quality of the kinds and the natures it was necessary that His speech in the mystery of the man was one thing when not yet born, another while still to die, another now eternal.

For our sake, therefore, Jesus Christ, remaining all these things and born as man of our body, spoke according to the custom of our nature; yet not omitting to be what is of His own nature, that is, God. For although in His birth, and passion, and death He performed the things of our nature, yet He accomplished all those very things by the power of His own nature; and so forth. Do you see how God and man are so proclaimed that death is reckoned to the man, but the raising of the flesh to God? (Yet not so that He who died is one, and He through whom the dead One rises again is another.

For the flesh despoiled is the dead Christ, and again the Christ who raises Christ from the dead is the same Christ divesting Himself of the flesh.) Understand the nature of God in the power of the resurrection; recognise the dispensation of the man in death. And though both were wrought by their own natures, yet remember that Christ Jesus is one, He who is both. These things, then, had to be demonstrated by me in a few words, that we might remember that the form of each nature is treated in the Lord Jesus Christ: for He who was in the form of God took the form of a servant. Chapter.

IV.—But how have they, who are called Christians, dared even to doubt whether the Lord, who came forth from Mary, is indeed the Son of God in substance and nature, while that which is according to the flesh is of the seed of David and of the flesh of holy Mary? CHAPTER V.—Hence that which was read, that the Lord of majesty was crucified, we are not to suppose was crucified as it were in His majesty; but because the same is God, the same is man—God through the Divinity, man through the assumption of flesh—Christ Jesus the Lord of majesty is said to be crucified, because, being a partaker of each nature, that is, of the human and the divine, He underwent the passion in the nature of the man; so that without distinction both He who suffered is called the Lord of majesty, and the son of man, as it is written, who descended from heaven (John.

iii, 13). Let there be silent, therefore, empty questionings about words, since the kingdom of God, as it is written, consists not in the persuasiveness of speech, but in the demonstration of power (1 Cor. ii, 4, and iv, 20). Let us keep the distinction of Divinity and of flesh. One in both, the Son of God speaks, because in the same one both natures are. And though the same speaks, He does not always speak in one manner. Behold in Him now the glory of God, now the sufferings of the man. As God He speaks the things that are divine, because He is the Word; as man He says the things that are human, because He was speaking in that substance. But while we refute these, there emerge others who say that the flesh of the Lord and His Divinity are of one nature. What hells have vomited forth so great a sacrilege?

The Arians are now more tolerable, whose strength of perfidy grows up through these men, so that with greater contention they assert that the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit are not of one substance, because these men have attempted to say that the Lord's Divinity and His flesh are of one substance. And these frequently remind me that they hold the decree of the Council of Nicaea. But in that decree our Fathers said not the flesh, but the Word of God to be of one substance with the Father. And they confessed that the Word indeed proceeded from the paternal substance, but that the flesh is of the Virgin. How, then, is the name of the Council of Nicaea held up as a pretext, and things brought in that our forefathers never perceived? And so forth.

Hence beautifully the Apostle used a repetition of the same word, saying of the Lord Jesus Christ: 'When He was in the form of God, He thought it not robbery to be equal with God; but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant.' What is 'in the form of God,' but in the fulness of the Godhead, in that expression of divine perfection? Therefore, when He was in the fulness of the Divinity, He emptied Himself (Phil. ii, 6), and took the fulness of human nature and perfection. As nothing was lacking to God, so nothing was lacking to the completeness of the man, that He might be perfect in each form. Whence also David says: 'Beautiful in form beyond the sons of men' (Ps. xliv, 3). The Apollinarist is confuted; he has nowhere to turn; he is shut in by his own nets.

For He Himself said, 'He took the form of a servant'; it was not a servant who spoke. Again, therefore, I ask: What is 'in the form of God'? He answered, 'in the nature of God.' For there are, says the Apostle, those who are not by nature gods (Gal. iv, 8). I ask further: What is 'taking the form of a servant'? Without doubt the perfection of human nature and condition, as I have said, that He might be in the likeness of men. And beautifully He said the likeness not of flesh, but of men, because in the flesh it is the same. But because He alone was without sin, whereas every man is in sin, He was seen in the appearance of a man. Whence also the prophet says: 'And He is man, and who shall know Him?' (Jer. xvii, 9).

He was today according to the flesh, but beyond man according to the divine operation. In short, when He touched the leper, He seemed a man, but beyond man when He cleansed him. And when He wept for Lazarus who was dead, He wept for the dead one as a man; but He was above man, when He commanded the dead one to come forth with his feet bound. He seemed a man, when He hung upon the cross; but above man, when, the tombs being unsealed, He raised the dead. CHAPTER VI.—Do not, therefore, doubt that Christ the man is now there whence He is to come; and remember faithfully and hold firmly the Christian confession: that He rose from the dead, ascended into heaven, sits at the right hand of the Father: nor is He to come from anywhere else than from there to judge the living and the dead;

and so He shall come, as that angelic voice testified, in the same manner as He was seen to go into heaven (Acts i, 11), that is, in the same form of flesh and substance, to which indeed He gave immortality, but took not away its nature. But now He has appeared as mediator between God and men in such a way that, joining both natures in the unity of person, He both exalted the accustomed things with the unaccustomed and tempered the unaccustomed with the accustomed. What then, heretic? Since Christ is God and man, He speaks as man, and do you slander God? He commends the human nature in Himself; do you dare to deform the divine in Him? Let us acknowledge the twofold substance of Christ, namely the divine, by which He is equal to the Father, and the human, by which the Father is greater.

But both together are not two, but one Christ: lest God be a quaternity, not a Trinity. For as one man is a rational soul and flesh, so one Christ is God and man; and by this Christ is God, rational soul, and flesh. We confess Christ in all these, Christ in each singly. Who then is it through whom the world was made? Christ Jesus, but in the form of God. Who is it that was crucified under Pontius Pilate? Christ Jesus, but in the form of a servant. Likewise concerning the several things of which man consists. Who is it that was not abandoned in hell? Christ Jesus, but in the soul alone. Who, about to rise again, lay three days in the tomb? Christ Jesus, but in the flesh alone. Christ, therefore, is spoken of in these several things.

But all these are not two, or three, but one Christ. Therefore He said: 'If you loved Me, you would surely rejoice, because I go to the Father' (John xiv, 28). For the human nature is to be congratulated, in that it was so assumed by the only-begotten Word that it was constituted immortal in heaven, and thus earth became sublime, so that incorruptible dust sits at the right hand of the Father. For it is ours to believe, His to know; and so, just as God the Word, taking up the whole of what is man's, is man, so the man assumed, receiving the whole of what is God's, cannot be other than God. Yet not because He is said to be incarnate and commingled is any diminution of His substance to be understood.

For God knows how to be mingled without His own corruption, and yet to be mingled in truth. He knows how to take into Himself in such a way that nothing of increase accrues to Him, He who knows how to pour Himself wholly in such a way that nothing of loss befalls Him. Therefore, let us not, forming a conjecture according to the understanding of our own feebleness—according to visible proofs of experience concerning creatures entering into one another as equals—suppose that God and man are commingled, and that by such a confusion of flesh and the Word, as it were some body has been affected. Far be it so to believe, that we should think two natures reduced into one substance by a sort of fused kind. For a commingling of this sort is the corruption of each part.

For God, who is containing, not containable, penetrating, not penetrable, filling, not fillable, who everywhere at once is wholly present and everywhere diffused through the infusion of His power, was mercifully mingled with human nature; human nature was not mingled with the divine. CHAPTER VII.—But let us see why He comes with the cross. Namely, that those who crucified Him may perceive the blindness of their own madness; and therefore the sign of their shamelessness is borne. Therefore the prophet says: 'Then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn' (Zech. xii, 10), seeing their accuser, and acknowledging their sin. And what wonder is it, if He shall come bearing the cross, when He Himself shows the wounds of His body? For then, He says, they shall see whom they pierced (Ibid., and John xix, 37).

And just as after the resurrection He willed to refute the distrust of Thomas, and showed him the places of the nails, and revealed the wounds of His side, and said: 'Put in thy hand, and see, for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as you see Me to have' (John xx, 27; Luke xxiv, 39); so then also He will show His wounds and display the cross: that He may show that He is the same who had been crucified. For as, when two are separated by a quarrel, one set in the midst of the disputants dissolves the strife and discord, so also did Christ. God was justly angry with us, and we despised Him though angry, and turned away from the merciful Lord; and Christ interposed Himself in the midst, and joined both natures, and Himself bore the punishment that was hanging over us.

Christ therefore offered to the Father the first-fruits of our nature, and the Father marveled at the offered gift, both because so great a dignity presented it, and because what was offered was defiled by no stain. For He received it offered even into His own hands, and made it a partaker of His own throne, and, what is more, placed it at the part of His own right hand. Let us recognise who it is that heard: 'Sit at My right hand' (Ps. cix, 1; Matt. xxii, 44); what nature it is to which He said: 'Be a partaker of My throne.' It is that nature which heard: 'Earth thou art, and unto earth shalt thou go' (Gen. iii, 19). What speech I should use, with what word I should speak, I am not able to discover.

A nature frail, a nature despised, and shown to be worse than all, has conquered all, has overcome all, and this very day has been counted worthy to be found more exalted than all. Today the angels have received the vows long desired; today the archangels have been able to behold what they had long time desired; they have surveyed our nature shining in the Lord's throne with immortal glory. CHAPTER VIII.—Of which thing he is a witness who says: 'All have turned aside, together they have become unprofitable' (Ps. xiii, 3). And the prophets beseeching the aid of Christ: 'Lord, bow down Thy heavens, and descend' (Ps. cxliii, 5). Not that He might change the place in which are all things, but that for our salvation He might assume the flesh of human frailty, the Apostle Paul singing the same thing in harmony:

'Though He was rich, He became poor, that we by His poverty might be rich' (2 Cor. viii, 9). And He came upon the earth, and, going forth as man from a virginal womb which He had sanctified, confirming by the dispensation the interpretation of His name Emmanuel, that is, God with us (Matt. i, 23), He began in a wondrous manner to be what we are, and did not cease to be what He was: thus assuming our nature, that He might not lose what He Himself was. For although John writes: 'The Word was made flesh' (John i, 14), that is, in other words, man, yet He who never ceased to be God was not turned into flesh. To whom also holy David speaks: 'But Thou art the selfsame' (Ps. ci, 28). And the Father from heaven testifies and says:

'This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased' (Matt. iii, 17; Mark i, 11; Luke iii, 22): so that even having been made man, He is said by our confession to remain what He was before He became man, Paul proclaiming the same thing with us: 'Jesus Christ, the same yesterday and today, and forever' (Heb. xiii, 8). For in that He says 'the same,' he shows that He did not change His former nature, nor diminished the riches of His Divinity, because, having become poor for our sakes, He had assumed the full likeness of our condition. The one Son of the Father, and our mediator, neither lost His equality, nor was separated from our fellowship;

God the invisible, and man the visible, hidden as the form of a servant, and proved by the confession of believers to be the Lord of glory. For the Father did not deprive Him of the name of His own nature, after He became man for us and was made poor, nor did He call Him by another name when baptized in the river Jordan, but the only-begotten Son: 'Thou art My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased' (Matt. iii, 17; Mark i, 11; Luke iii, 22). Nor was our likeness changed into the nature of the Divinity, nor was that of the Divinity turned into the likeness of our nature. CHAPTER IX.

—When, therefore, God had come forth from the Virgin in that human nature which He had assumed, existing as one out of two things mutually contrary to each other, flesh and spirit, the one is assumed into God, the other bestows the grace of the Deity. He was indeed sent, but as man. For twofold was the nature in Him. Hence, in short, He also grew weary from the journey, hence He also hungered, and thirsted, and was made sorrowful, and wept by the law of the human body. CHAPTER X.

—When, therefore, we see certain things in Christ so human that they seem to differ in nothing from the common frailty of mortals, and certain things so divine that they befit no other than that ineffable nature of the Deity, the narrowness of the human intellect is at a loss, and, struck with the stupor of so great a wonder, it knows not whither to incline, what to hold, whither to turn itself. If it thinks Him man, it beholds Him returning from the dead with spoils, the kingdom of death having been vanquished. Wherefore He is to be contemplated with all fear and reverence, so that in one and the same the truth of each nature may be so demonstrated that neither may anything unworthy and unseemly be thought of that divine and ineffable substance, nor again may the things done humanly be judged mocked by false images.

CHAPTER XI.—He was named man, though by nature He is God, the Word of God the Father, since He likewise as we partook of blood and flesh. For thus He appeared on earth, not losing what He was, but assuming the nature of humanity, perfect in its own reason. One, therefore, He is, both before the incarnation true God, and who in His humanity remained what He was, and is, and shall be. The one Lord Jesus Christ is therefore not to be divided, into man apart and God apart; but we say that Jesus Christ is one and the same, not being ignorant of the differences of the natures, but preserving them unconfused between themselves.

For it is understood as it were as one dwelling in another, that is, the divine nature not having suffered commingling or change in the humanity, so as to be what it was not. For whatever is said to dwell in another does not itself become such as is that in which it dwells, but the one is rather understood in the other. But in the nature of the Word and of the humanity, the diversity of the natures marks out for us the difference alone. For one Christ is understood out of both. Therefore without confusion, as I said before, He is said to have dwelt as the Word in us, its integrity being preserved. For He knows that there is one only-begotten Son, made flesh and man.

The holy and great synod says, therefore, that He Himself, who was born naturally of God the Father, the only-begotten Son, true God of true God, light of light, through whom and with whom the Father made all things, that He descended, was incarnate, and made man, suffered, rose again on the third day, and ascended again into the heavens. These words we ought to follow; to these teachings it befits us to submit: considering what it is to be incarnate, and for the Word of God to be made man. For we do not say that the nature of God, being converted or changed, was made flesh; nor that it was transformed into a whole man, who is of soul and body;

but rather this, that the Word substantially united to Himself flesh animated by a rational soul, and became man incomprehensibly and ineffably, and was called also the son of man—not by bare will alone, nor yet by the mere assumption of a person, but because natures indeed diverse came together into one, yet there is one Christ and Son out of both, the diversity of the natures not being done away or removed by the conjunction, but because together they wrought for us one Lord, and Christ, and Son, that is, Divinity and humanity, through that secret and ineffable coupling unto unity. And so He who before all ages was born of the Father is also said to have been begotten carnally of a woman.

Not because His divine nature took its beginning from the sacred Virgin, nor because for its own sake it had need to be born a second time after that nativity which it had from the Father (for it is foolish and stupid to say this, that He who before all ages is co-eternal with the Father should have needed a second generation, in order to begin to be), but because for our sake and for our salvation He united to Himself human nature, and came forth from a woman; therefore He is said to have been born carnally. For a common man was not first born of the holy Virgin, and then at last the Word dwelt in Him; but in the very womb and virginal belly He joined Himself with flesh, and endured a carnal generation, making the nativity of His flesh His own.

Thus we say that He both suffered and rose again, not because God the Word in His own nature suffered either blows, or the piercings of nails, or other wounds (for God is incorporeal and beyond passion), but because that body, which had become His own, suffered; therefore He is said to have suffered all these things for us. For God, who could not suffer, was in that body which was suffering. In like manner we understand also His death. For the Word of God is naturally immortal and incorruptible, and life, and life-giving. But because His own proper body, by the grace of God, according to the word of Paul, tasted death for all (Heb. ii, 9), therefore He Himself is said to have suffered death for us.

Not that He Himself had experienced death, as far as pertains to His own nature (for it is madness either to think or to say this); but because, as we said above, His flesh tasted death. So also, the flesh rising again, we again speak of His resurrection: not because He had fallen into corruption—far be it—but because His body rose again. Thus we confess one Christ and Lord, not co-adoring a man together with the Word, lest a certain species of division be introduced; but adoring one and the same already: because His own body is not alien from the Word, with which He Himself also sits beside the Father. Nor do we say this as though two sons sat beside Him, but one with the flesh through the unity:

for if we were unwilling to accept such a coupling made through substance, either as impossible or as unbecoming, we fall into this, that we say there are two sons: for then it is necessary to distinguish and to say that the man existed separately, honoured with the appellation of Son alone, and again the Word, which is of God, is both in name and in truth the Son of God. But we ought not to divide the one Lord Jesus Christ into two sons. For neither does this help the right reasoning of the faith, though some allege I know not what coupling of persons. For Scripture did not say that the Word of God took to Himself the person of a man, but that He was made flesh (John i, 14).

But this is to show that the Word of God, likewise as we, had participation of flesh and blood, and made our body properly His own, and that man came forth from a woman, the Deity not being cast off nor laid aside, nor that generation which He had from the Father; but that even in the assumption of the flesh He remained God, which He was. This everywhere the reasoning of the right faith attests. In such a sense we have found the holy Fathers to have held. Therefore they did not hesitate to call the holy Virgin Theotokos, not because the nature of the Word and the Deity took its beginning in the holy Virgin, but because there was born of her that sacred body, animated by a rational soul, to which the Word of God, substantially united, is said to have been born carnally.

The inscription of the epistle itself occasions no small difficulty. This we have found in the manuscripts of nine collections, namely the Spanish, the Isidorian 11, 12, and 20 through 24, and in the exemplar of Sichardus. Moreover, the inscription in codices of this sort varies both in the name of the bishop and in the name of the episcopal see. For the Vatican, Spanish, and Isidorian exemplars, together with the manuscript collections 12, 20, 21, 22, and 23, present Leo as bishop of Ravenna (Ravennas, or Ravennensis, or Ravennatensis). But the codices of collections 11 and 24, together with the exemplars of Merlinus and Sichardus, exhibit Neon, Neonius, or Neonia, likewise of Ravenna. The three codices alleged by Quesnel in note 1, in which Neonia or Neonia is read, we have ascertained to pertain to collection 24.

But the edition of Isidore, likewise cited by Merlinus, points to that exemplar which, in this epistle as also in some others, agrees with the readings of collection 24. Since, moreover, the codices hitherto known were similar to those which agree upon the see of Ravenna, doubt could be raised only concerning the name of the bishop. But we ourselves have found two ancient books of Vienna, in which the name of Leo is indeed retained, but the episcopal see differs greatly. For the Viennese exemplar, which we have said elsewhere to contain the purer Spanish collection, in its title indicates Leo of Arbona, and in the inscription: 'Leo to Leo, bishop of Arbona, greeting.' But another Viennese exemplar of collection 5, marked with number.

42, into which some epistles had been inserted from the Spanish collection, suggests this title: 'To Leo, bishop of Narbonne.' 2. But that in so great a variety of codices and collections the solution might be easier, we have observed that there is a twofold source whence this epistle was taken, namely the Spanish collection, from which the authors of the Isidorian collections 12, 20, 21, 22, and 23 derived this epistle, and another exemplar, from which the author of collection 24, Merlinus, and Sichardus took the same. For the variants which, on re-reading the epistle itself, we found in these same manuscripts, showed this twofold origin. Since, moreover, as regards the name of the episcopal see, several codices of the former origin marking Ravenna agree with all the manuscripts.

of the other source, there is no doubt to be entertained concerning the see of Ravenna. And this is confirmed above all by the fact that the two Viennese codices which dissent labour under an evident error. For the bishopric of Arbona, which is read in the Viennese Spanish manuscripts, is unknown; and Narbonne at this time was held not by Leo, but by Rusticus, to whom we shall see another, later epistle was addressed. Nor let it disturb anyone that the first Viennese codex comprises the purer Spanish collection. For although it is thus far purer, in that it did not receive the emendations introduced into the Gallican codices, yet it is most faulty, and betrays its fault clearly enough in that very inscription of the bishopric of Arbona, which no one will find.

But this error is demonstrated more evidently by the more ancient and more correct Spanish codices which the author of the Breviary of the Canons of the Spanish Church, published by Cardinal de Aguirre, employed, a manuscript exemplar of which Breviary we have found among the Vatican codices, number 4887. For this work, written at the close of the seventh century—as Father Coustant also proved in his preface to the Epistles of the Roman Pontiffs, number 150—is a Breviary of the Spanish collection, which the Spanish author took from Spanish codices without doubt. And in it, in book IV, titles 30 and 35, two titles are cited from the following epistle, which in both places is cited in these words: 'The epistle of Leo to Leo of Ravenna, title 1 or 2, from chapter.'

73, and in this heading the following letter is described in the Hispanic collection. Concerning, then, the name of the see of Ravenna — in which the purer and more ancient Hispanic codices and the others derived from them agree with other manuscripts drawn from another source — there can be no doubt. 3. Since, moreover, it is established that this concerns the bishopric of Ravenna, the catalogues of the bishops of Ravenna show that the name of Neo is to be embraced; for no Leo whatever is found among the bishops of this see during this period. But in this matter the ancient catalogues of the bishops of the Church of Ravenna raise a difficulty — the ancient ones, I say, which can be read in Agnellus, first edited by Bacchinius;

for the more recent ones in Rubeus and Ughellus, although in the present matter they do not stand in the way, nevertheless departed from the ancient order at will, so as to reconcile with certain preconceived opinions some monuments discovered later. But in those ancient catalogues no Leo at all is found as a bishop of this age; while Neo is made the predecessor of St. Peter Chrysologus, whereas from this letter he ought to be later. Now, in order that this difficulty may be removed, two things must be distinguished in these catalogues: the order of the bishops, and the time and deeds ascribed to them. The order of the ancient catalogues, insofar as, for the bishops of the earlier centuries, it was derived from the most ancient diptychs preserved in each of the Churches, is to be retained, unless something altogether evident compels otherwise.

But the time and deeds assigned to individual bishops — since they could not be taken from the diptychs, in which only the names of the bishops were recorded — depend on the discretion of medieval authors, or even on certain common preconceptions, which in matters of antiquity are to be reckoned of the least value. Hence many little fables of this kind are found sometimes inserted into such catalogues, which are rejected by the reckonings of the learned, and other uncertain or contradictory things are repeatedly detected, when more reliable ancient monuments come to light. Since this has been ascertained in the catalogues of other Churches, so it has been most evidently proved by us above all in those of Ravenna, in Book II of the Observations upon the sacred works of Cardinal Noris, chapter 7, number 3, volume IV, page

915, where we also showed that, when the order of the bishops and the deeds and times assigned to the bishops are in conflict, it is better to suspect error in the deeds and times wrongly ascribed than in the order of the bishops. 4. The order of the bishops of Ravenna of this age, in Agnellus and the other ancient writers of the Church of Ravenna, is this: Ursus, Peter, Neo, Exuperantius, John, Peter. But since they ascribe to John the privilege of Valentinian III, they attribute to the second Peter, his successor, the things which are certain concerning St. Peter Chrysologus. Against these, however, three monuments published later stand in the way: first, the letter of Leo to Neo, which suits the bishop who was successor of Peter Chrysologus;

second, the letter of Pope Simplicius to John, bishop of Ravenna, who obtained that see after Peter and Neo; third, the Roman synods under Symmachus, in which another Peter of Ravenna is found subscribed. Observing these things, Father Bacchinius, in order to loose the threefold knot, had recourse to two devices. First, he supposed that Leo's letter was sent not to Neo of Ravenna, but to Ravennius of Arles, to whom other letters of the same pontiff were given during this period, since it is established that the Gauls were devastated by Attila, and that captives were led away thence, who returned to their homeland, as is related in this letter.

Then, in order to satisfy the two other monuments, he believed that two bishops must be added to the said catalogues — namely, one John, who lived under Simplicius, and a third Peter, who lived under Symmachus — as if Agnellus and the other writers of the ancient catalogues had confused two Johns and two Peters into the John surnamed Angeloptes and the second Peter. These things a man must introduce quite arbitrarily who does not suspect that things and times were wrongly assigned. 5. To place Ravennius of Arles under the superscription of Leo's letter fights against the testimony of all the codices.

Not only were the Gauls devastated by Attila, but he also penetrated into Italy itself as far as the Po, beyond which river the province of Ravenna, and even part of the diocese, extended. What of the fact that this letter, from its context, appears to be encyclical, addressed to many, so that no special reason need be sought for Ravenna? Moreover, the addition of the two bishops John and Peter would be probable, if no other means of reconciling everything were available. But when some certain error exists in the catalogues, and it can be healed by the mere emendation of the deeds and times — which were established from the discretion of authors as adventitious, or from prejudices — the order of the bishops, which took its origin from the most ancient diptychs, is not to be abandoned or disturbed by additions.

By this rule, sufficiently evident, which will be found most useful in the other catalogues of other Churches, you will discover that in the present matter the whole difficulty and confusion introduced from the catalogues proceeds from this: that things which ought to have been assigned to the first Peter of Ravenna were ascribed to the second; for thus they attributed an earlier age to Neo and the rest. But if this error be corrected, and the first Peter — not the second — be believed to be St. Peter Chrysologus, at once everything will be found healed and to agree perfectly. For he it will be who sent the famous letter to Eutyches. To him then succeeded Neo, to whom the holy Pontiff wrote the following letter.

Then, after Exuperantius, the successor of Neo, John under Simplicius, and finally another Peter under Symmachus, follow most fittingly. If Agnellus and the authors of the ancient catalogues had seen these monuments, we have no doubt that, the order of the bishops being preserved, they would have reconciled the same monuments in like manner, as Rubeus and Ughellus did; and thus the true age of Neo would be confirmed from the very same sources. But the ignorance of the monuments, which then prevailed, cannot prejudice the certain testimony of the codices, which inscribe this letter to Neo of Ravenna.

Frequently indeed, when the hearts of the brethren wavered amid the doubt of diverse questions, we have, by the instruction of the Spirit of God, given them firmness, gathering the form of our reply either from the teachings of the Holy Scriptures or from the rules of the Fathers. But recently, in synod, a new and hitherto unheard-of kind of consultation arose. For, at the suggestion of certain brethren, we learned that some of the captives, returning freely to their homes — those, that is, who had fallen into captivity at that age which could have had no firm knowledge of anything — do indeed implore the remedy of baptism;

but whether they received the mystery and sacraments of that same baptism, they cannot recall, owing to the ignorance of infancy; and therefore, under this uncertainty of a hidden recollection, their souls are brought into peril, while, under the appearance of caution, that grace is denied to them which is not bestowed precisely because it is thought to have been bestowed. Since therefore the dread of certain brethren not unreasonably hesitated to grant the sacraments of the Lord's mystery to such persons, we received in the synodal assembly, as we have said, the form of a consultation of this kind, which, examining it more diligently, we resolved to treat with careful reasoning according to the judgment of each, that by employing the knowledge of many we might arrive more surely at the truth.