THE LETTER OF PROCLUS OF CONSTANTINOPLE TO THE ARMENIANS CONCERNING THE FAITH, DIONYSIUS EXIGUUS BEING THE TRANSLATOR. To the bishops, presbyters, and archimandrites of the orthodox holy Church throughout all Armenia, most beloved of God and venerable, Proclus sends greeting in the Lord. Not in small measure, brethren, has the report troubled our soul and wounded it with most grievous sorrow — the report of the new tares of error which lately the craftiest enemy of our common nature has sown in your region.
For an intolerably grievous report is wont to wound souls that have not been trained by meditations of this kind, and it hurls itself the more perniciously, fixing its darts on high, in that the peril does not assail the body but strives to overthrow the state of the mind, scattering abroad the opinion that the venerable garment of your faith has either been pitiably torn asunder or wholly carried off by theft. Indeed every virtue is to be sought after by those whose reason is not darkened by material things, and all wickedness is not without cause judged to be shunned by the right-minded, inasmuch as it stands directly opposed to true being, itself without doubt subsisting contrary to nature;
for just as that which is most useful must of necessity be guarded, so that which is not profitable but is proved to be adverse must either be repelled when it is at hand, or, if it is feared lest it befall, must be carefully guarded against. The kinds of virtue, then, are very many. But various people have defined virtue variously: whether the Gentiles, whom error stifles, and whose ignorance of divinity darkens the light of discernment; or the Christians, who, having the eyes of the mind illumined by right faith, behold more clearly, through confession, the salt of righteousness. For the former, wandering as it were in darkness in their counsels, and possessing a sense headlong and without restraint, strive after uncertain reasonings, finding in the things they decree nothing beyond the fluid and unstable nature of things,
scrutinizing things visible, while they have the gaze of true contemplation either entangled in temporal causes or blinded by errors. For they say that there are four species of virtue, that is, justice, prudence, fortitude, and temperance; which, although they are good, yet creep upon the ground and are cast down toward earthly things, since lower things are measured against the heavenly summit. For they called fortitude the wrestling against the flesh; temperance, that which takes its victory from the subjugation of the passions; prudence, that which in civil conduct holds to its chosen ordinances; justice, the most excellent equality of proportion.
Now, however, they sanctioned by law, as they supposed, the order of life, restraining by definitions of this kind the immoderate and unlawful appetite. But what is lofty and more sublime than the present life, they were able neither to conceive nor to set forth, but, leaning on a foolish and darkened heart, they strove, as far as in them lay, to enclose virtue within visible things only, attributing to it nothing excellent and worthy of a heavenly habitation. But those who through faith have the eyes of the heart illumined — whose chief and master is the most blessed Paul — define virtue to be that which, ever raising us toward God, governs us in orderly fashion upon the earth.
This Apostle, therefore, venerable in all things, enumerates indeed many species of virtue, but commends especially faith, hope, and charity; of which faith bestows upon men goods that surpass the merits of nature, joining them with things invisible, even though they still carry about garments subject to manifold passions. For to those men who, by the loftiness of their condition, do not know the nature of the angels and of the other incorporeal powers, faith imparts the knowledge thereof — to men who walk upon the ground and wallow in the dust; entreating the throne, the invisible One who is without all form, presenting us, and intimating the sure illumination of the uncreated Nature that ever abides without beginning.
This faith also, by its brightness scattering the material sense and overpowering our gross and clouded gaze of mind, enables us clearly to behold those things which then can in part be seen when they are reckoned invisible, and to be comprehended when they are believed to be inaccessible. But hope, deigning not, as is said, to cling to dreams, but firmly holding fast to what is believed, even now prepares for itself future things amid things present; and, to exclude all doubt, it embraces in thought, as though present, that which is not yet at hand, bringing the things awaited almost beneath the sight against all opposition. Surmounting these hindrances, hope joins to things almost visible the things that are desired, wholly surpassing the fleeting emptiness of time by love of things to come.
But charity is the summit and head of our holy religion. For through it God, though ever present in the earth, deigned to come to us through the flesh. Both, therefore, rightly agree with each other: for faith is the mirror of charity, and charity is proved to be the firm support of faith. We believe that God the Word was made flesh without suffering; and we piously believe it: for this faith is known to be the foundation of our salvation. Therefore we love him who for our sake took the form of a servant, who neither underwent any mutability of his nature, nor added increase to the Trinity. And so every Christian who is not rich in faith, hope, and charity, is not that which he is called;
but even though he seems to chastise his poor little body and to be free from the passions of the soul, such a one, advancing only in moral virtue, by no means attains the crown of victory, inasmuch as he has not stretched himself out toward that knowledge of the Divinity which always bestows crowns upon those who valiantly wrestle through virtue. And therefore let faith, which (as I said before) is the head of all good things, be kept inviolate, presenting nothing discordant with human inventions, troubled by no profane novelties of words; abiding within the evangelical and apostolic bounds, let it be violated by the stubborn fury of no one. For on account of this faith we have been saved, and to this faith our tongue subscribed in baptism.
For the loftiness of faith casts down all the audacity and rashness of whoever rises up, not only the human but even of those who by nature are exalted and incorporeal, since blessed Paul says (Gal. 1): 'But if we, or an angel from heaven, preach to you a gospel other than that which you have received, let him be anathema.' For it has been commanded to the angel to minister, not to compose doctrine. And it is exceedingly perilous for individuals not to remain in those things to which they were ordained, but to wish to aspire above measure to things by no means granted to their nature. And therefore, even if substance should bring forward something that may seem worthy of faith, it will not be receivable, since it has answered with the unsanctioned things of its own preaching.
What we have received, therefore, let us keep with unsleeping care, continually raising the eyes of the mind toward the treasure of faith. But what have we received concerning the Scriptures, except that God founded the world by his Word, and brought forth from nothing the creation which was not? And because by a natural law he honored the rational animal, a commandment is given to it, that what was best should not lie hidden from its choice, but that by a better purpose it should turn away from harmful things.
And because that one, by his own spontaneous will, slipping down into worse things, was cast out from the lands of paradise through disobedience; and finally because, through the fathers, the patriarchs, the law, the judges, and the prophets, he who fashioned the nature instructed it, so that it might indeed beware of sins, but might take care to do the things that are right — yet so that sins held dominion even over us who willed it, and for their cause raged unto the destruction of a desolated nature; inasmuch as the natural law, grown obsolete, became foul, and the written transgression grew numb; the prophets too, as men, admonished what ought to be done, but could not free from the impending ruin;
God, who lacks all form, without beginning, uncircumscribed, and the almighty Word, coming in the flesh (for there belongs to him the power to do what he wills), took the form of a servant, being made flesh, born of a Virgin, willing everywhere to show that according to truth he deigned to become man. For a bodily nature, and beginnings, and habits, and passions of necessity follow. For the evangelist does not say (John 1) that God entered into a perfect man, because he was made flesh, touching the very first beginnings of our nature.
For just as a man, naturally brought forth, does not at once proceed perfect in operation, but first the very deposit of the seed is drawn out into flesh, then in the course of time takes on the power that contains the completion of the senses and operations; so God the Word, touching the very beginnings and root of human constitution, was first made flesh, not converted — far be it — into flesh. For the divinity remained superior to all mutability, because mutation is the suffering of a flowing nature; but it is proper to that perennial and everlasting essence which thus exists, that it should persevere unchangeable. Using, therefore, both expressions of divine Scripture, we say that he both was made flesh and took the form of a servant.
From both, when piously understood, there exist for us the seeds of salvation: for through that which is, 'the Word was made flesh,' the evangelist declares the indivisibility of his supreme union. For just as a singleness cannot be divided into two singlenesses (otherwise, divided into these, it will no longer be a singleness but a duality), so that which is one according to the supreme union, can by no reasoning be parted into two. But through that which 'he assumed the form of a servant,' the immutability of the divine nature is intimated: because everything that is made is either made out of that which existed, as the heaven which was not before; or out of that which is, it is converted into another thing, as the streams of the river Nile changed into blood.
But each manner is proved incongruous to the divine substance: for neither did it proceed from any existing things, ever abiding without beginning; nor was God the Word converted out of any matter, persisting in his own immutability. Therefore through these things divine Scripture testifies both to the immutability of the Godhead and to the indivisibility of the mystery, demonstrating that which was made and intimating that which he assumed: so that through the first it may commend the singleness of the nature of each person, and through the other it may pronounce the immutability of the divine substance. God the Word, therefore, was made perfect man, the nature of the Deity unchanged, with a miracle attesting which exceeds the understanding of our mind:
this very thing we perceive by faith, we do not gather by inquiry. And having been made man, akin to us according to the flesh, he granted salvation to the race through the likeness of his sufferings, paying indeed the debt of sin, while, having suffered the things that belong to man, he dies for all, but destroying him who held the dominion of death, that is, the devil; as the most just God: making possible also that of the law which was impossible, by fulfilling all righteousness, and he restored to our substance its pristine nobility and brightness through that whereby he was made man; he honored him whom he himself had formed from the earth. There is, therefore, one Son, one Lord:
For we confess a Trinity of one essence, by no means admitting a fourth person into the Trinity. But, as we have said, there is one Son, born of the Father without beginning, through whom we believe the ages were made; a branch coeternal from the root, sprung from the Father in an ineffable manner, the word of the mind proceeding inseparably and abiding intimately within. For although he was seen on earth, yet he was not divided from his Begetter: he willed to save him whom he founded — nay rather, he saved him — deigning to inhabit the womb, the common gateway of nature, which also he sanctified by his presence, and by his nativity he sealed the birth, which is above nature, showing himself incomprehensibly made man.
Therefore Christ is not one and God the Word another — far be it; for the divine nature does not know two sons: the one Father begot the only-begotten; for where there is no conjunction of begetters, there you will not be able to find any quality of those born. 'In the name of Jesus Christ every knee bends, of things heavenly, earthly, and infernal' (Phil. 2). If Christ were another besides God, it would be necessary that Christ be a mere man; and how do the heavenly powers venerate him beyond the merit of nature, and bend the knee to him who is less? How also do we attend to the prophetic oracles crying out that 'our God was seen upon earth, and conversed with men' (Baruch 3)?
For the prophet calls 'vision' the manifestation which was made in the flesh, and 'conversation' that whereby he sojourned temporally with men, whose goodness without grudging declared the advent of his piety: because, as the Almighty, both that which he was he remained for his own sake, and that which he willed he was made for our sake. But if perchance the rudiments of his infancy ever stir up an occasion of scandal — and the reclining in the manger, and his advance in time according to the flesh, and likewise that he slept in the boat, that he was wearied from the journey, that after fasting he hungered, and all those things which according to truth befell him made man — let those who reprehend these things know that they deny the human nature in Christ;
and denying the nature, they by no means believe the dispensation; and not believing the dispensation, they sense the losses of salvation: and if from the constitution of the world, by which it stands that man was cast into this life, anyone has entered upon some other way besides this of the flesh, let the contentious show it, and then at last let them weave together their ravings. But if these are the beginnings of common nature — yet God the Word according to truth was made man — confessing the nature, why do they find fault with the suffering?
Let them therefore choose one of two things: either, blushing at the indignities, let them abjure the nature, and, afflicted with the diseases of the Manichaeans, be reckoned with the impious; or, if they accept the gain which is from the incarnation, confessing the substance, let them not be confounded by the sufferings which follow upon the substance. I marvel also at the madness of those who walk in new paths of deception: for I, piously acknowledging one Son as I have been taught, whom I profess to be the substance of the incarnate Word of God; and there being one who both bore the sufferings and worked the miracles, by what reasoning do they pass over in silence the more divine things and disparage the humbler? For that the Word, remaining what he was, might give assurance of faith, he was made flesh (John 1),
that is, an infant and a perfect man, so great a sacrament being violated by no conversion; the selfsame one was both perfecting the miracles and sustaining the injuries, through the divine signs intimating that he remained what he was, and through the sufferings manifesting that he had been made what he had formed. We therefore preach one and the same Son, both coeternal with the Father and incarnate in the last times, inserting nothing adulterous whatsoever into the divine nature: for there cannot be anything superfluous upon the throne. But perhaps they will throw at me that thing oftentimes bruited about, weaving together syllogisms weaker than a spider's web: 'If the Trinity is of one essence, surely the Trinity remains impassible.'
'But if the Trinity, and God the Word is beheld in the Trinity, remains impassible, then God the Word also is approved to be impassible. But if God the Word is impassible, there will be found one who was crucified other than the impassible God the Word.' Truly they weave spiders' webs who bring forth these things; they write upon the waters who meditate the most inept propositions; who, while they said themselves to be wise, became fools, and their senseless heart was darkened (Rom. 1): for the bleary eye does not purely receive the rays of the sun, and the feeble mind is unable to behold the loftiness of faith. What then do we say to these things? That according to the principle of the Godhead the holy Trinity both is of one essence and perseveres impassible.
For neither, in saying that the Son suffered, do we sense that he suffered by reason of the deity, since the divine nature by no means receives any suffering; but confessing that God the Word, one of the Trinity, was incarnate, we furnish matter of understanding to those who faithfully inquire why he deigned to be incarnate. For because God the Word had decreed to destroy the passions, whose terminus was held to be death, but the inviolable nature could not undergo suffering (because every passion is proved to bring conflict to composite things, but in a spiritual and single substance there is no composition:
nor did that suffering reach there, where there was no composition), willing, as I said before, to destroy the passions which had oppressed the rational body, whose perishing was the supreme fortification (as God the Word knew), he is incarnate from the Virgin, and is found in habit as a man: because thus he willed to empty himself, taking in a manner the form of a servant (Phil. 2), yet admitting no circumscription of his deity, through which also he conferred salvation upon all the human race, exterminating the passions by his flesh, preserving his own deity impassible. Therefore Gabriel, intimating the authority and power of the one to be born, said to Mary, declaring: 'He shall save his people from their sins' (Matt. 1).
But the people cannot be a man's, but God's; nor does he rescue the world from iniquities who entered this life together with corruption, not having a blameless beginning of nativity; but of necessity God and man at once, not divided into two, but remaining one, through that which is born of a woman showing himself man, but through that which both without a husband and keeps the mother intact, intimating himself wholly God, he saved his people. Who? Jesus Christ, who came upon earth, and conversed with men (Bar. 3). But if Christ is a mere man, and is not himself God the Word, how did he in the beginning create all things, when then, as the impious assert, he was not?
For since man is the last among creatures, if Christ is a mere man, it stands that he could by no means have created those things which were before him, as being made afterward. And how did Paul say, 'One Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things'? But if all things were made through Christ, it is manifest that Christ is God the Word, the evangelist testifying: '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 through him' (John 1). And Paul too, interpreting the same, says: 'One Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things' (Col. 1). Wherefore it is said that Christ is God the Word.
But if they bring forward those expressions set down in the divine letters by which Christ is called a man — Peter saying: 'Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved by God among you' (Acts 2); and Paul testifying similarly: 'In the man in whom he has foreordained, giving faith to all' (Acts 17); and the Lord himself crying out concerning himself: 'Why do you seek to kill me, a man?' (John 8) — let them know that through carelessness they are deprived of the understanding of holy Scripture, or surely through malice they desert it, because they turn back to their own depravity even those things which are well written.
For Christ is indeed called man according to truth, but he was made this, which before he was not, except that he is now God; for just as he is uncreated God, so the same is also perfect man, admitting no suspicion whatever of phantasm. And just as he is consubstantial with the Father according to the deity, so the same is proved to be similar to the holy Virgin according to the flesh, the truth of the mystery shining forth everywhere, all falsehood being utterly removed. But if the virgin did not bring forth God, neither was she reckoned intact by a great miracle: for many and other women also have produced just men for the world. For the prophetic tongues, foresinging the unspeakableness of this sacrament, said:
'Behold, a virgin shall conceive in the womb, and shall bring forth a Son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel.' Which Gabriel interpreted, saying, 'God with us' (Isa. 7; Matt. 1; Luke 1). Why, on account of the lowliness of the one born, do they diminish the glory of her who bears? But this perhaps they object, saying: 'Everything that is born is proved to be like the one begetting. If, therefore, he whom she begot is a man, of necessity he who is born of her is a man.' As if by a plausible reasoning you bring forth these things. But she then bears and brings forth one in all things equal to herself, when according to nature the birth also takes place. But the beginning of natural childbearing is corruption, because it precedes the commingling also.
But when there is not even a suspicion of this injury, it stands that the miracle is above human understanding; where the birth is above nature, there he who is born is God. We confess, therefore, that he both made the world out of nothing, and gave the law, and inspired the prophets too, and in the last times was incarnate, and also sent the apostles to the salvation of the nations and peoples. Let us therefore flee the counsels of seduction, the pernicious streams of the heretics, I mean, and the contagions hostile to God: the frenzy of Arius, who divides the inseparable Trinity into substances; the audacity of Eunomius, who encloses the incomprehensible nature within the knowledge of humanity;
the rabidness of Manichaeus, who separates from the essence of the Deity the Holy Spirit, who also proceeds inseparably. And likewise this most recent and novel blasphemy, which is recognized to surpass in manifold ways the impiety of the Jews. For they, denying the Son, strive to tear the branch away from the root. But these, superimposing another upon him who is, contend to defame the inviolable substance as though into a manifold offspring. Let us therefore say with Paul (Eph. 2): 'Christ is our peace, who made both one.' For the Jew and the Gentile he reformed through baptism into a new man, joining by power those whom their manner of life had separated.
Therefore let the inventors of the new impiety tremble at the damnation which threatens them, when they have returned into one separated concord, and he who united into two — as far as it concerns them — is derived. But, prolixity of speech being now laid aside, I shall come to a compendium of right doctrine. If anyone wishes truly to know how the selfsame one is one, and not only remaining the Son of Abraham, but in the last times according to the flesh advancing in wisdom and age (for his deity always possesses that which is perfect), let him interrogate Paul, and he himself will straightway thunder forth the sacrament of piety, showing that he who is also sprung from the Jews according to the flesh exists as the eternal God:
for speaking of the Hebrews, and praising the rebellious and untamed nation — namely on account of the root Abraham, and on account of the seed Christ — he thus pronounces: 'Whose,' he says (Rom. 9), 'is the adoption of sons.' For he cries out in the prophets: 'Israel is my firstborn Son and my glory.' For divine miracles conferred infinite glory upon those who then were approved in their morals, and the testaments through which the multiplication of Abraham's seed was promised, and the legislation which on the mountain was inscribed by the finger of God, and the service whereby they served the divine worship, and the promises by which either the land of Palestine or surely the blessing in the seed of Abraham was conferred upon all the nations:
whose fathers, who in this night of ignorance are proved to have arisen like luminaries of faith, and from whom is Christ. Nor did the most blessed Paul stop at these things. For not from the time when the birth from Mary took place is the essence of the Word who exists without beginning. But he straightway added 'according to the flesh,' so that it might signify the manifestation which was made in the flesh, not that divine and eternal nativity.
Who then was this Christ, who was born of the Virgin, whom a cave received as a thing of no price, who lay in a manger, who according to the flesh grew with the passing of time, and who, descending into the lower parts of the earth, endured with a wondrous condescension all the things that belong to the flesh, that He might give proof that He was truly made man—and that He was no other than the one who descended, but that the very one who descended is the same who ascended? For He did not first ascend, but descended; inasmuch as He is God not by promotion, but for the mercy of which we stood in need was He graciously made man. Who He is, let no one inquire of me or of any other, but of the Apostle, who declares the Son to be revealed by the Father, when he says (Gal. 1):
But when it pleased Him who set me apart from my mother's womb, and called me by His grace, to reveal His Son in me? Now who this One is, Jesus Christ Himself will truly teach, when He cries out (Rom. IX): Of whom is Christ according to the flesh, who is over all things God blessed forever. These words of Paul—what stealthy occasion of slander do they grant to those who love what is perverse? For he called Him Christ, to show that according to the truth God was made man; he said He was of the Jews according to the flesh, to make clear that He does not exist only from the time when He was incarnate; he called Him 'who is,' to declare Him to be without beginning; he called Him 'over all things,' to proclaim Him Lord of the whole creation;
he called Him Lord, lest, being led astray by His sufferings and His outward condition, we should dare to deny His undefiled substance; he called Him blessed, that we might adore Him suppliantly as the Almighty, and not assail Him with slanders as a fellow-servant; he called Him 'forever,' to show that He who created us by His word according to His divinity should be honored by us with unceasing reverence. Having therefore Christ both as existing, and as God, and as blessed forever, let us venerate Him as Lord, saying to the champions of foreign doctrines: If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His (Rom. VIII); but we have the mind of Christ;