Examining certain doctrines set down in the first part of the paper volume transmitted by your piety through our brother Benignus, bishop of Heraclea in Pelagonia—the tenor of which, according to the understanding expounded below, is here inserted into our present definition in order to exclude the error of all ambiguity—we have perceived them to be full of execrable blasphemies, and utterly hostile to the orthodox faith, which, in accordance with the evangelical and apostolic teaching, is read to have been defined by the four holy synods of Nicaea, Constantinople, Ephesus the first, and Chalcedon, approvably and irreproachably, with the cooperating presence of the Holy Spirit; and we judge them to be repelled far from Christian minds:
Therefore, since these are execrable and were long ago condemned without doubt by the holy Fathers, we too by our sentence anathematize and condemn them. The first of these chapters runs thus: Chapter I. How then do you—to whom above all it most befits to hold the rule of the merciful—say that he who was born of the Virgin is to be reckoned God, and of God consubstantial with the Father, unless perhaps you bid us impute his creation to the Holy Spirit? But he who is God, and of God, and consubstantial with the Father, was perhaps present in him who had been born of the Virgin (O marvel!)—him who, according to the divine Scriptures, was formed through the Holy Spirit and received his fashioning in a woman's womb—present, that is, as soon as he had been formed.
and he received him that he might be the temple of God: yet we must not reckon that God was born of the Virgin—unless perhaps we are to reckon likewise both that which was born and that which is in the born one, namely the temple, and him who is in the temple, God the Word. Yet neither, according to your own words, is it at all to be pronounced that God was born of the Virgin and is of God consubstantial with the Father. For if he who was born of the Virgin is not man assumed—as you say—but God incarnate, how could he who was born be called God of God and consubstantial with the Father, since the flesh is not able to receive this predication? For it is indeed madness to say that God was born of the Virgin;
for this is nothing else than to say that he was begotten of the seed of David from the substance of the Virgin and formed in her. For that which is of the seed of David and of the substance of the Virgin took its subsistence in the mother's womb, and we say that, formed by the power of the Holy Spirit, he was born of the Virgin. But that someone should from this grant them to say that God—and of God, and consubstantial with the Father—was born of the Virgin, on the ground that he is in the temple that was born: yet God the Word was not born of himself, but incarnate, as this wise man says.
If therefore they say that he was born with flesh, and that which was born is God of God and consubstantial with the Father, it is necessary to say this also of the flesh; but if that is not the flesh—since it is neither God, nor of God, nor consubstantial with the Father, but of the seed of David and consubstantial with him whose seed it is—then that which was born of the Virgin is not God, and of God, and consubstantial with the Father (unless perhaps a part of the born one, inasmuch as he himself in what follows names the Godhead a part of Christ); but the divine nature was not born of the Virgin: rather, he was born of the Virgin who consists of the Virgin's substance. God the Word was not born of Mary;
but he who is of the seed of David was born of Mary; God the Word was not born of a woman, but he was born of a woman who was formed in her by the power of the Holy Spirit. He who is consubstantial with the Father was not born of a mother (for he is 'without mother,' according to the word of blessed Paul), but he who in later times was formed in the mother's womb by the power of the Holy Spirit is for this reason said to be, as it were, 'without father.'
In the first chapter written above, since it appears to be established by circumlocutions that a mere man was born of the holy Virgin Mary—by saying, 'if we confess that God the Word, who is consubstantial with the Father, was born in the flesh of the same Virgin, it is necessary that we consequently say that the flesh too is consubstantial with the Father'—therefore whoever thinks, teaches, believes, or preaches with such an understanding, and does not believe that the same Word and Son of God was through a second birth incarnate and born of the holy Virgin, let him be anathema. Chapter II. But presently, in the very one formed, God the Word came to be present; for he was present not only in him ascending into heaven, but also in him rising from the dead, inasmuch as he was even raising him up according to his promise;
and he was present not only in him rising again, but also in him crucified and baptized, and carrying out the evangelical manner of life after baptism, and likewise fulfilling the legal ordinance before baptism, and presented according to the Law, and circumcised, and wrapped in the swaddling-clothes of birth; and he was perhaps present in him even as he was being born, and while he was in the mother's womb from the very first forming; for he imposed order upon the dispensation that concerned him, inasmuch as he was leading him step by step to perfection. Chapter III.
And in time leading him to baptism, and after that to death, then according to his own pronouncement raising him up, leading him into heaven, and setting him at the right hand of God through his own conjunction, whereby he sits and is adored by all and will judge all. Now God the Word held the end of all these things within himself, since he was in him, and accomplished all things in due order—an order which he himself judged to be good, by that predetermination and will which he had earlier established for the things that were to come to pass; and by the good will which he had toward him, he was present in him from the beginning in like manner, and by an order pleasing to himself he was leading him to perfection.
In the second and third chapters written above, this seems to be maintained: that God the Word was present in the formed man as one in another. For by saying that he seemed step by step to impose order on the dispensation which concerned him, and to lead him, on account of the good will which he had toward him and bestowed on the one who was assumed, to an advance of perfection—by such words a duality of persons in our one Lord and God Jesus Christ seems execrably to be introduced, as though he had, like any man, progressed by the grace of God the Word through spans of time; and therefore whoever thinks, teaches, believes, or preaches with that understanding, let him be anathema. Chapter IV.
But he bestowed his cooperation upon the one who was assumed for the appointed works: where does he make it that the Godhead was to the one who was assumed in place of a mind? For not even to those to whomsoever he granted his cooperation did the Godhead hold for them the place of a mind; and if now too he granted a certain special cooperation to the one who was assumed, this did not make the Godhead hold the place of a mind. But if the Godhead came to be in place of a mind for the one who was assumed, according to your words: how did he take on fear in the Passion? Why did he need more vehement prayers in the face of the impending necessity, which, with a loud and crying voice and with many tears, according to blessed Paul, he offered to God?
How was he held by so great a fear that from immense trembling he let fall fountains of sweat, the Evangelist plainly saying that his sweat came down like clots of blood? And why did he need the coming and visitation of an angel, refreshing his soul in the trial of evils, strengthening his eagerness, rousing him toward the impending necessity of the Passion, persuading him to bear the evils bravely, urging him to patience and endurance of evils, showing the fruit of the present evils, the change to come from the Passion, the good glory that would be about him after the Passion?
For he who, according to the Evangelist's word, strengthened him—the angel, namely—by these words made him strong, and exhorted him to become superior to the weakness of nature, and by corroborating his thoughts made him strong. In the fourth chapter written above, since it is understood to be said that, just as God bestowed his cooperation on other men, so also it is said to have been bestowed on the one who was assumed—albeit special, yet in like manner as on other men—and thus that a mere and weak man needed the aid of an angel in his Passion, so that, for the corroborating of his thoughts, future glory might be promised him for his endurance of the Passion: if anyone thinks, teaches, believes, or preaches thus, let him be anathema. Chapter V.
'Get behind me, Satan; you are a scandal to me, because you savor not the things that are of God but the things that are of men: death is no confusion to me, I will not flee it as unbecoming, looking to human glory; but I will endure with a better mind the trial of death for the many goods to come, in which I too shall share, and through me all. Do not wound my mind nor trouble it by admonishing me to flee the trial of death as though it were worthy of shame.' In the fifth chapter written above it is said that Jesus Christ therefore spurned the words of the Apostle Peter, when he said to him: Get behind me, Satan; you are a scandal to me,
because you savor not the things that are of God but the things that are of men—lest, disturbed by his dissuasion, his own mind should shrink from the Passion, and because he would profit by his Passion and undertake the trial of the death to come for the many goods thence to be acquired for himself. Whoever therefore thinks, teaches, believes, or preaches thus, and does not rather believe that his death, which he underwent in his own flesh, conferred upon us the rewards of eternal life, let him be anathema. Chapter VI. For that which was said:
'he was led by the Spirit,' plainly signifies this: that he was governed by him, was strengthened by him toward the virtue of his purposes, was led by him to those things which were fitting, was taught by him what was becoming, was corroborated by him in his thoughts, so that he might be sufficient for so great a contest—just as blessed Paul also says: 'For whoever are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God,' calling 'led by the Spirit' those who are governed by him, taught by him, established by him toward the better, and receive from him the teaching of what is fitting. And when the Evangelist had said that, full of the Holy Spirit, he returned from the Jordan, he plainly showed that for this cause he received the indwelling of the Holy Spirit at his baptism, that from it he might take virtue for his purposes.
Whence also he was led by the Spirit to that contest which he was to wage for us against the devil. In the sixth chapter said above, again as a mere man—by the Spirit whose presence he is said to have received after baptism—he is asserted to have been led to all things, strengthened and instructed like other men, of whom, as here it seems to be said, the Apostle says: 'Whoever are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God.' If anyone therefore thinks, teaches, believes, or preaches thus, and does not believe and confess and preach that the incarnate God the Word is one Christ, let him be anathema. Chapter VII. Let then the wisest of all tell us:
If, for the Lord Christ who is according to the flesh, the Godhead came to be in place of a mind, as they say, why did Christ need the cooperation of the Holy Spirit for these things? For the Godhead of the Only-begotten did not need the Spirit for justification, did not need the Spirit to conquer the devil, did not need the Spirit to work miracles, did not need the Spirit to be taught what it was fitting to perform, did not need the Spirit that he might appear immaculate. For if the Godhead was indeed in place of a mind, and his power sufficed for all things, it was necessary that all things should come to pass thence, so that the indwelling of the Holy Spirit was superfluous.
But now he says that he was anointed by the Spirit, and that the Spirit dwelt in him and aided him in all his purposes, and that from it he received both teaching and power, and from it obtained justification, and from it was made immaculate. In the seventh chapter written above this is understood to be said: that, like other men, he had need of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit for his own justification, and to conquer the devil, and to work miracles, and to be taught what it was fitting for him to do, and to appear immaculate, and that by the Spirit itself he was aided in all his purposes.
Whoever therefore thinks, teaches, believes, or preaches thus, and holds that Christ did not, by his own Godhead as true God, work all that he willed and will work what he wills, but that, as a mere man, he needed the solace of the Holy Spirit, let him be anathema. Chapter VIII.
He says that this, which was before the ages, was made in the last times (as though certain men confessed this—though no one who has care for piety suffers this disease of madness, so as to say that he who is before the ages was made in the last times); and from these he infers that it is necessary that this too, which is in the last times, should be before the ages; and he accuses those who do not say all things alike with interchange, as though those who confess that the Son is one were under necessity to say all things with interchange. And who would not bless your folly? Who would not wish to obtain such teachers, introducing so great a confusion into the reasoning of piety, that they would say 'this,'
'that which is before the ages was made in the last times,' and would alienate this from its own nature and lead it down to the worse, and then would reciprocally turn it about, that this too, which is in the last times, is before the ages—when perhaps it were fitting to say that he who was before the ages assumed this one who was in the last times, according to the word of blessed Paul?
Following therefore your laws, and taking up the interchange—nay rather the subversion—established by your wisdom, come, let us confound all things together, and let there now be no distinction: neither of the form of God nor of the form of a servant; neither of the temple that was taken up nor of him who dwelt in the temple; neither of him who was dissolved nor of him who raised up; neither of him who was made perfect in his sufferings nor of him who perfected; neither of him who was accounted worthy of remembrance nor of him who became mindful; neither of him who was visited nor of him who visited; neither of him who was made a little lower than the angels nor of him who made him lower; neither of him who was crowned with glory and honor nor of him who crowned; neither of him who was set over the works of God's hands nor of him who set him there; neither of him who received these things unto subjection nor of him who gave the subjection.
In the eighth chapter said above, a duality of persons seems to be introduced in various ways by this, which is said: 'It is not he himself, who was before the ages, who is to be said to have come in the last times,' but as though the person of the one assuming the humanity were one, and the person of the one assumed another. If anyone therefore thinks, teaches, believes, or preaches thus, and does not confess that the same God the Word, who before the ages was born of the Father, was in the last times incarnate and born of the Blessed Virgin Mary, so that Christ is one and the same in both natures, let him be anathema. Chapter IX. This man, therefore, in whom he appointed to make the judgment of all unto
faith in things to come, when he had raised him from the dead and shown him to be the judge of all, according to the word of blessed Paul—he deigned him worthy, by unity to himself, and through the conjunction made to himself he made him a partaker of such things, so that he might have also a communion of adoration, all indeed rendering the adoration due to the divine nature, but comprehending in that adoration also him whom he knows to be inseparably joined to himself. From which it is manifest that he led him on to greater things. In the ninth chapter written above, by the term of a certain conjunction and participation, as of God made to the man Christ, Christ is asserted to be adorned with divine works: whereby again a duality of persons is introduced.
If anyone therefore thinks, teaches, believes, or preaches thus, and does not acknowledge and believe one and the same Christ, our God and Lord, with the difference of natures remaining in their properties, let him be anathema. Chapter X. 'I indeed, whom you see, can do nothing according to my nature, since I am a man; but I work, because the Father, remaining in me, does all things. For since both I am in the Father and the Father in me, and God the Word, the Only-begotten of God, is in me, it is certain that the Father too, together with him, remains in me and does the works.' And it is not to be wondered at that these things are supposed of Christ, since he evidently says of other men also:
'Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him.' For if with every such man both the Father and the Son make their dwelling, what wonder is it if in the Lord Christ according to the flesh both were thought to remain together, their communion according to substance perhaps admitting a communion also of indwelling in the man? Whoever therefore thinks, teaches, believes, or preaches thus, let him be anathema. Chapter XI. Thus also, first receiving the soul—inasmuch as it was constituted human and immortal and a partaker of sense—and by the resurrection establishing it in immutability, so also through the resurrection he bestowed on us the communion of these same things.
Therefore, before the resurrection from the dead, he rebukes Peter as one scandalizing him by his words, and, set in great trembling throughout the time of the Passion, he needs the appearance of an angel strengthening him to patience and endurance of the impending evils. But after the resurrection from the dead and the ascension into the heavens, having been made impassible and wholly immutable, and sitting at the right hand of God, he is judge of the whole world, inasmuch as in him the divine nature exercises the judgment. In the eleventh chapter written above, the same things seem to be repeated which were already said above in the fourth: that before the Passion Christ was so weak that, set in great trembling at the time of the Passion, he seemed to need the solace of an angel.
Since this seems to signify him as a mere man who needed helps of this kind, if anyone thinks, teaches, believes, or preaches thus, let him be anathema. Chapter XII. Thus therefore here also, O wisest of all, you teach us to have the mind of Christ as those having the Holy Spirit—that Spirit which supplied some power to the mind of Christ, furnishing him prudence for all the things that were to be done; just as in what precedes we have shown that by it he was led into the wilderness to the contests
which were against the devil; and by his anointing he received both the knowledge and the power of the things that were to be done, and having been made a partaker of him he not only worked miracles, but also knew subtly how it was fitting to use miracles, so that he might make piety known to the nations, yet bear the infirmities of those who labored, and thus bring his will to effect; and thence he was justified and shown immaculate—without repairing of worse things, without keeping of better ones, or even by gradual advances toward what is better.
In the twelfth chapter written above, the same things which are in the seventh chapter seem to be set forth, by asserting that our Lord Jesus Christ was formed for all things through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and through periods of time came to the perfection of his anointing by its aid. If anyone therefore, not believing that he was perfect by his own Godhead, but that, as a mere man, he was aided by needing the anointing of the Holy Spirit, thinks, teaches, believes, or preaches thus, let him be anathema. Chapter XIII. How then does it follow, from the fact that God became man, to say that this man is God the Word? For if God the Word is man, as you yourself say, we say of the man in every way those things which the Evangelist says of God the Word. But what does he say?
'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 that was made.' Therefore, if God the Word is man, we say of him: 'In the beginning was the man, and the man was with God, and the man was God. The man was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was made nothing that was made.' For if God the Word is man, as you say, all the things which the Evangelist says of God the Word will befit him. In the thirteenth chapter written above, God the Word seems to be denied to have become man, and again the man to be God the Word, so that thereby, as was said above, a duality of persons is introduced.
If anyone therefore thinks, teaches, believes, or preaches thus, and does not rather believe that, with the difference of natures remaining unconvertibly and undividedly in our Lord God Jesus Christ, there is thus one person or one subsistence of him—so that both God the Word is believed to be man without any convertibility of his divine nature, and the assumed humanity, on account of the singularity of the person, is believed unconvertibly to be God—let him be anathema. Chapter XIV.
This indeed, which is 'to my Father and your Father and my God and your God,' no one is so mad as to say befits any other than the temple of God the Word, the man assumed for our salvation, who both died and rose again and was to ascend into the heavens, and, together with the disciples, ascribes God to himself as Father—he himself having merited adoption by grace, and calls him his God, because, like other men, he received it that he might exist. Whence, on account of the community of nature, he says 'my Father and your Father' and 'my God and your God'; but again he divided his own person from theirs, signifying the special prerogative of grace, on account of which, by conjunction to God the Word, he is honored by all men in the place of the true Son.
In the fourteenth chapter written above, by this which is read in the Gospel—'I ascend to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God'—it is thus understood that Jesus Christ, our Lord and God, like other men received the grace of adoption, that he might be called a son of God, and is as it were, through conjunction to God the Word, adored by all in the place of the true Son. But if anyone thinks, teaches, believes, or preaches thus, and does not rather understand and believe that Jesus Christ, the Son of God and our Lord, is one in two unconfused and inseparable natures, let him be anathema. Chapter XV. This which was said, 'receive,' he says for 'you shall receive.'
For if, when he had breathed upon them, he had given the Spirit to the disciples—which some have very foolishly supposed—it would have been superfluous to say to them afterward, and especially at the time of the ascension into the heavens, that they should not depart from Jerusalem but await the promise of the Spirit, and in what follows, 'but you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you.' And Luke plainly says that the very coming of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples took place on the fiftieth day of the resurrection, after the ascension. And this too is to be noted: that if they had received the Spirit from the breathing, he would not have said 'receive,' but 'since you have received'; for this which was said, 'receive,' befits those who have not yet received.
In the fifteenth chapter written above it is said that our Lord Jesus Christ, breathing after his resurrection upon the faces of his disciples, did not give them the Holy Spirit but signified that it was to be given—so that thereby either the Truth itself, which God forbid, might be thought to have lied, or, as a mere man, he had not by that breath what he might give, or was in no way able to give it. If anyone therefore thinks, teaches, believes, or preaches thus, let him be anathema. Chapter XVI. He says to Thomas: Put your finger here and see my hands, and reach out your hand and put it into my side, and be not unbelieving but believing.
'Since,' he says, 'you do not believe, and you think that touch alone is enough for you to believe (for in saying this you did not escape my notice), reach out your hand and take proof, and learn to believe and not to doubt.' Now when Thomas had thus come to believe, he says, 'My Lord and my God,' not calling him the very Lord and God (for the knowledge of the resurrection was not teaching that he too who had risen was God), but rather praising God as it were for the miracle that had been wrought. In the aforesaid sixteenth chapter, concerning that passage of the Gospel where the apostle Thomas, touching the marks of the nails, said:
'My Lord and my God,' it is asserted that the apostle Thomas did not confess Christ himself, the Lord of the laws, to be Lord and God, because the knowledge of the resurrection did not teach that he who rose was God, but rather that the apostle Thomas praised God for the miracle that had been wrought. If therefore anyone thus understands, teaches, believes, or preaches this, and does not rather believe that by the confession of Thomas it was declared both that Jesus Christ is true God and that he rose in true flesh, let him be anathema. Chapter XVII.
But he said that they, doing penance for the iniquity of the cross, and acknowledging as Saviour and Lord and author of all good things Jesus Christ—since on account of these things he came and was taken up into the divine nature—ought to receive faith in him and to become his disciples, and above all, coming to baptism, which he himself also delivered to us, having indeed a prefiguration of the hope of things to come, must yet be celebrated in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. For this.
That is, that each one should be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ—by this he does not mean that they should abandon the invocation which is in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and invoke Jesus Christ in baptism, but it is of such a kind as that they were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. As if to say.
That since under the cloud and the sea they were separated from the Egyptians and delivered from their servitude, in order to attend to the laws of Moses—of such a kind is it that each one is baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, that is, that when they had come to him as Saviour and author of all good things and teacher of truth, they might be named after him inasmuch as he is the author of good things and the teacher of truth, just as it is the custom for all men, whatever sect they follow, to be named after the very founder of the doctrine, as the Platonists and the Epicureans and the Manichaeans and the Marcionites, and if any are called by such names. For in the same manner the apostles also judged that we should be named Christians, as though thereby making it certain that his teaching ought to be heeded: