Sermons & Letters 175 part 2/4

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.