But receive yet another point, in which likewise, so as to make the great synod the more notable, they have suffered Theodore to be praised as one entangled in the crimes not of one heresy only or of two; and they are convicted of being contrary both to themselves and to the judgment of blessed Cyril by their own testimony, when they say that this same Theodore also cuts away all the prophecies made concerning Christ. For while they have unworthily condemned him, as it were for Jewish impiety, saying that he did not believe Christ to be God, they on the contrary also fasten upon him the crime of the Manichees, who, as we know, do not accept the Old Testament. For the Jews too do not deny that Christ was announced through the prophets; but they still await him as one to come, whom we believe to have already come.
But to whom, even of one possessed of little understanding, would it be credible that a bishop in the Catholic Church should be said to have believed and taught that the prophets foretold nothing of Christ, and yet to have remained in her communion? For this error is not, like that of many heretics, hidden, or coloured with some semblance of truth, so that it would not first offend religious ears by its mere sound, when it is said that the prophets prophesied nothing of Christ. For this indeed is to make void all the prophecies made concerning Christ, which it is boasted that Theodore did. Although therefore by its very nature what is here fabricated about him seems incredible, yet this too, according to them, is said against the opinion of blessed Cyril.
For if Theodore cut away all the prophecies made concerning Christ, he did not rightly interpret the Gospel writings, in which Luke records that the Lord said: These are the words which I spoke to you, while I was yet with you: for it is necessary that all things be fulfilled which are written in the law of Moses, and in the Prophets, and in the Psalms concerning me (Luke 24:44). Nor did he rightly expound the Apostle, who at the beginning of his Epistles says: Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the Gospel of God, which he had promised before through his prophets in the holy Scriptures concerning his Son, who was made to him of the seed of David according to the flesh (Rom. 1:1).
and six hundred other things of this kind, with which the Gospel and apostolic writings are full. But let us attend to what this same Theodore said in his commentary, when expounding the aforesaid chapter of the Epistle to the Romans: 「And because what was said by them concerning Christ seemed in some manner new, he adds, which he had promised before through his prophets, wishing to show from prophecy the antiquity of the doctrine. Whence also, magnifying the prophecy, he rightly added, in the holy Scriptures. For he did not mean the letter or the sacred character, but the prophecy itself, which was given to them by the Holy Spirit granting revelation. He rightly therefore so named the prophecy itself. So too he said elsewhere: All Scripture divinely inspired is profitable (2 Tim.」
III). What then do these words mean? Concerning his Son. And because the name of son is common, and even when it is said of the divinity, it is also taken of the humanity, wishing to disclose more plainly whence it was now his purpose to speak, or for what cause he added the testimony of the prophets: Who was made to him of the seed of David according to the flesh, he plainly indeed shows that he introduces discourse concerning the assumed man; yet he did not leave the indication of the divinity unsignified. For in that which he added, according to the flesh, he sufficiently shows that he knows how to take the signification of son also otherwise, since according to this he knows him to have been made of the seed of David, as not so knowing him according to the other.
For they understand two natures, but one single thing by conjunction. The one indeed is of the assumed man, the other of God the Word. But both concur into one on account of the assumption, and on account of the union which was effected by that assumption, which union the form of a servant has unto God.」 Behold, Theodore confesses both that the prophets spoke concerning the Lord Christ, and that the same Lord Christ is man and God: who so says that the Apostle shows the antiquity of his doctrine to have been wrought through prophecy in Christ, that he also says that the name of son, when it is said of the divinity, is taken also of the humanity; and that, since he introduces discourse concerning the assumed man, he did not leave the indication of the divinity unsignified;
and what is more evident, and what could be turned by no malicious interpretation into a wrong sense, he says that the Apostle knows the Son of God indeed according to the flesh to have been made of the seed of David, as not so knowing him according to the other, that is, according to the Godhead. Although therefore according to one thing and another, yet in both Theodore teaches the Son of God to be, and not another. He did not therefore, like Nestorius, believe one according to the flesh fashioned of the seed of David, and another according to the Godhead the Son of God, to be another in person or subsistence; he who says that the Apostle knew the same Son both according to the flesh and according to the Godhead. Whence following on he added: For two natures are understood, but one single thing by conjunction.
And although the one nature is of the man, and the other of God the Word, yet both concur into one, on account of the assumption and on account of the union which was effected from the assumption. He confesses moreover, according to the Apostle, that God beforehand promised Christ through the prophets, and that the prophets spoke concerning his Son. This man therefore does not make void all the prophecies made concerning Christ. Truly, because it is the truth that the assailants of the holy synod cast these charges against him on this account, that in his interpretation of the Psalms he is said to have expounded morally certain things which ought rather to be understood as said concerning Christ—so that we need not discuss how they themselves placed them, and how they were placed by him;
nor need we now prove that this matter does not make a heretic, since it is often judged praiseworthy if even things spoken prophetically be expounded morally: to these contentions an end is given by what this same Theodore says to Cerdon in the book On Allegory and History which he wrote against Origen (whence also he incurred the hatred of the Origenists): 「I for my part, that you so praise our works, impute to none other than the friendship you have toward us, which you have always shown also in many and great matters; and especially because you admire those things which are written upon the Psalms, which we wrote first of all the rest. But we did not bestow upon that matter as much diligence as we ought;
for we suffered, as happens, whatever befalls those who are beginning and set in unskillfulness of writing. Indeed our writings underwent at that time many alterations too, which it is not for the present time to recount; for which cause very many things were composed by us rather negligently, and especially those which are the first.」 Behold, even if those things which they reprehended in his interpreting of the Psalter were to make him a heretic, he himself, retracting them, confesses that his own interpretation displeases him, and chastises the light sayings of confident youth with the gravity of maturer age. The more therefore is he to be approved even in this very thing, and not so much to be censured for the error as he ought to be praised for the correction, since the divine Scripture says:
Who slip, but not from the heart; and who is there that has not sinned with his tongue? And so here too he showed by his own spontaneous reprehension that he slipped not from the heart, and, what is more, in a work in which he was praised by his friend. Would that even those who knowingly and willingly betrayed the Church might deign to imitate this man, even when reprehended by others! And these things indeed suffice for the clearing of Theodore. But those who reckon it as heresy, if certain things spoken prophetically concerning Christ be also expounded morally, ought to consider how they can defend blessed Cyril.
For in that work which they say he wrote in reprehension of certain sayings of Diodore and Theodore, something of such a kind is found that, if it should still be said to have been composed by him, they would confirm him to have been a heretic. For the author of that same work treats there a chapter in which the Apostle says to the Hebrews: For he did not subject to the angels the world to come, of which we speak. But one in a certain place testified, saying (Heb. 2:9): What is man, that you are mindful of him, or the son of man, that you visit him? You made him a little lower than the angels, you crowned him with glory and honour, and set him over the works of your hands: all things you have subjected under his feet (Ps. 8:5).
For in that he subjected all things, he left nothing not subject to him. But now we do not yet see all things subject to him. But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, on account of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honour, that by the grace of God he might taste death for all. The author of the said work therefore, treating this testimony, affirmed that those things which the Apostle testifies the prophet to have foretold concerning Christ were written concerning other persons: but by the same Apostle were skillfully transferred to the manifesting of Christ's mystery. For he says:
「But Paul, a very wise craftsman, in order to introduce divine mysteries, sometimes adduces even those things which were said of certain others in the divine Scripture, to manifest the sacrament of Christ. Nevertheless he does not separate them from those persons of whom we know them to have been said, nor yet does he reduce the whole of them to Christ; but he sometimes takes up some least part, which he himself can without any danger skillfully refer to his own purpose.」 Whether they wish these to be blessed Cyril's or another's, we leave to their own judgment to choose. For if they are blessed Cyril's, and if whoever has treated morally things spoken prophetically is to be called a heretic;
they assert that he himself was much more a heretic, who confirms that the things mentioned above, against the testimony of the Apostle, were said not prophetically concerning the sacrament of Christ, but concerning certain other persons. But if they should rather choose to say this, that the work is not blessed Cyril's, they cannot excuse by his example their own presumption, by which they condemned Theodore with his doctrines. Granted that whoever be said to be the author of that work, it can profit nothing for their defence, because he is found neither to have said anathema to Theodore, nor to his doctrines. They ought therefore to consider whether, affirming that work to have been written by blessed Cyril, they have what they might answer for him, if it be said to them:
Since you presume to be judges of the dead, and to condemn as heretics those who departed in the peace and honour of the Church, what do you judge concerning bishop Cyril, who teaches what Paul the Apostle teaches, and asserts that those things which were written prophetically concerning Christ were said of certain other persons; but by the Apostle were brought in, more skillfully than truthfully, sometimes to manifest his sacrament?
As if there were so great a poverty of divine Scripture, or there had been so great a slothfulness in Paul the Apostle himself in manifesting the sacrament of Christ, that he could not have found such a testimony as was truly written concerning him, and of which he might refer to his own purpose, not some least part, sometimes skillfully, without danger, as he says, but the whole and unmixed, as it stands, simply and securely. But since the same Apostle says: Do you seek a proof of him who speaks in me, Christ (2 Cor. 13:3)?
if he spoke skillfully rather than truthfully, then it is affirmed that almighty Christ, who is also our truth, in order to manifest his own sacrament, could not find a true testimony in his own Scripture. Let them therefore see what they may answer against these things, who, condemning Theodore to the prejudice of the Council of Chalcedon, in order to excuse themselves, object that they did this because in that work blessed Cyril blamed his sayings. For they have no way to persuade even the Jews, if it be said that that man in whom Christ spoke brought in, skillfully and to manifest the sacrament, a false testimony said concerning other persons.
Lastly, neither can they satisfy the Catholics themselves seeking to know why the Apostle brought in things said of others to manifest the sacrament of Christ, and to say that at least some usefulness invited this to be done; because, beyond the fact that it is far from the truth of our faith if Christian usefulness be said not to be truthful, this is not said even without the judgment of blessed Cyril. For if the Apostle said that prophetic word was usefully written concerning Christ, it was harmfully spoken against by blessed Cyril, that it was not written concerning Christ; nor ought he to have betrayed what Paul wished to be concealed.
Especially because he sought to persuade this in vain, who, teaching that no faith should be put in the Apostle, much more taught that he himself was not to be believed. But let these men know that it does not follow that one makes void all the prophecies made concerning Christ, who has rightly treated also morally certain things mystically said of him. For let them hear the Apostle writing to the Ephesians and saying: For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak in Christ and in the Church (Eph. 5:31). But this which he says to be a great mystery, They shall be two in one flesh, writing to the Corinthians he interprets otherwise, and says:
Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them the members of a harlot? God forbid. Or do you not know that he who cleaves to a harlot is made one body with her? For they two, he says, shall be one flesh (1 Cor. 6:15-16). Behold, that great and commended mystery, which he intimates to be in Christ and in the Church, Paul the Apostle without blasphemy fits even to the fornicator and the harlot. Nor does he anywhere lie, or is deceived, or by writing such things make void the prophecies made concerning Christ, since for the most part the divine word, like a pearl penetrable on every side, ought to be opened only by a most upright and balanced and mean understanding.
Let them hear Christ himself in the Gospel not making void the prophecies made concerning himself, when the Pharisees, tempting him and saying: Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for any cause? he answered thus: Have you not read, that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female, and said: For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they two shall be one flesh? Therefore they are now not two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder (Matt. 19:3-6). And that great and singular mystery, which the Apostle said to be true in himself and in the Church, he himself who is our truth pronounces to have been written also generally for the preserving of the conjugal bond.
And let it suffice with these things to have proved that it is often judged praiseworthy if even things spoken prophetically be expounded morally. Meanwhile indeed you perceive, O emperor, and by the very evidence of manifold documents you recognize more and more, that the Nestorian letter of Ibas cannot be convicted from the praise of Theodore. And for this cause, as we have already said, the heretics sought that it should be denied to have been received by the synod, which is plainly false, first that, with us offering no resistance, nay rather affirming it, they might heap up whatever crimes they wished against it; then that by our very denial they might show that it ought not to have been received.
But receive now how, not only in those things which we have mentioned, but in absolutely all things for which they condemned the bishop of Mopsuestia, they have blinded the judgment of blessed Cyril, who, resisting the heretics accusing the sayings of the said Theodore, writes thus to blessed John of Antioch and to the whole Oriental synod: 「But the audacity and the contention which you all alike undertook on behalf of an admirable man, deserving the greatest glory among you, Theodore I mean, crying out against certain ones who, as it appears, are hostilely disposed toward him, and making occasion of the contrary doctrine by which they are held, that certain chapters not understood from the better sense, as some have said, on account of which they have also disturbed your holiness, should be required to be condemned.
This too they now, as your letters show, set in motion as they journey to the royal city, if in any way they may prevail to persuade the concourse of certain ones, that by an imperial decree those things which are brought forward by them may be subjected to anathema, with accusation of those willing to defend them. To this, however, I say, as it seems to me, and to everyone having a mind, that it is impious to reckon against or to bear hardly upon those who know not how to walk rightly, but rather to leave behind as far as possible those who think thus. Unless perchance it must be taken into mind what they wish to contrive; since especially neither is the person ready at hand whom they put under the fault, and the refutation of the chapters is uncertain, and those who do these things will be found running into uncertainty, and beating the air.
」 Behold, we have proved that not certain things, but all the things which they accuse in the sayings of Theodore of Mopsuestia were condemned against the opinion of blessed Cyril: because when the person who is put under the fault is not ready at hand, the refutation of the chapters is found to be uncertain. But let your piety deign to attend also to this, that he does not say those to be beset with the disease of Nestorius who contended that certain chapters of the admirable man, deserving the greatest glory, Theodore, should not be condemned: but rather he says of those very ones that they made occasion of the contrary doctrine by which they were held, who were hostilely disposed toward Theodore.
Rebuking them too because they knew not how to walk rightly, he admonishes that those who think thus we should, as far as we are able, leave behind as far as possible, nor take into our mind what they were seeking to contrive, namely that, when no certain person existed who might either well interpret the things he had said, as blessed Cyril himself did concerning his own chapters, or, if he did not do so, might be put under the fault, an empty refutation of the chapters should be made. Humanly therefore he admonished by his own example that many things were said with a right purpose which could be understood otherwise. Let us therefore know, most clement emperor, according to Cyril's opinion, that those who do these things will be found running into uncertainty, and beating the air.
And therefore again at the end of that same letter he says concerning such men: 「But justly will they hear, even though they be unwilling, who furnish causes of this kind: You forget yourselves, when against dust you stretch the bow. For there does not survive he who is enrolled among you; and let none blame me for having proceeded to these words, but let him yield to the all-too-notorious predecessor. For it is a grievous thing to insult the dead, even if they were laymen, much less those who in the episcopate laid down this life. For it appears most just to prudent men to yield to him who foreknows the will of each one, and who knows of what sort each one of us will be.
」 It has appeared from these things which have been mentioned, most clement emperor, that bishop Cyril judges it a grievous thing to insult the dead, even laymen: how much more, against those ending their life in the episcopate, to say anathema, and to forestall God's judgment of their cause, who foreknows the will of each one, with what intention each says what he says, who also knows of what sort each one of us will be, and of what sort they will be found... in that judgment, where we shall all stand before the tribunal of Christ, that each one may render the things proper to the body according as he has done, whether good or evil?
Whose Catholic mind, indeed, would it not offend, that these judges of the dead say that the same blessed Cyril showed himself contrary to himself, and afterward judged otherwise concerning certain writings of the said Theodore, and fell into that very thing which he blamed in the restless presumption of others? since the Apostle says: For if I build again the things which I have destroyed, I constitute myself a transgressor (Gal. 2:18).
For since he himself taught that those who were hostilely disposed toward the admirable man deserving the greatest glory, Theodore, seeking that certain of his chapters not understood from the better sense should be condemned, rather made occasion of the contrary doctrine by which they were held, and pronounces that they do not walk rightly, how would he not constitute himself a transgressor, and turn upon himself all the things which he said in invective against others, if he himself too should afterward wish certain chapters of Theodore to be condemned?
Or how would he not be caught being contrary to himself, who, when he had admonished us that, seeking other things, we should as far as can be done leave them behind as far as possible, would afterward take into his mind what those men wished to contrive, namely that, when there was no person ready at hand whom they might put under the fault, he should make, as he himself defined, an uncertain refutation of Theodore's chapters, running according to his own opinion into uncertainty, and beating the air? It is too hard that this should be rashly thought of Cyril, that, forgetting himself, and not considering himself to be mortal, he should stretch the bow against dust, that is, against a dead man reduced to dust:
since it was not impossible that he himself should suffer this after death, when he could no longer defend or better interpret his own sayings. He himself, arguing against Theodore's rivals, said: For it is a grievous thing to insult the dead, even if they were laymen, much less those who in the episcopate laid down this life: and is he himself rashly to be believed that he afterward could insult Theodore, who met death in the episcopate, and not, as he was entreated, yield to God who foreknows the will of each one, and knows of what sort each one of us will be? Who would dare to say this of Cyril, except those who would wish to provoke against him not another's sentence, but to recall his own? For what perhaps another would not dare to say of him, he himself has already said:
Since these men will justly hear, even though they be unwilling, who furnish causes of this kind. And therefore he is not rashly to be believed to have furnished causes of this kind against his own sentence. But now in manifold ways, as we promised, you recognize, Augustus, that it has been shown that the accomplices of the heretics, for the making void of the great synod of Chalcedon and of the statutes of blessed Leo, condemned too too audaciously under anathema Theodore also, bishop of Mopsuestia, and that in vain they strive to defend their rashness by I know not what patronage of blessed Cyril. Wherein at the same time your serenity could perceive that, while seeking to demonstrate these things, we have also taught those three things to be false, although incidentally and aside from our intent:
namely, what they said about Theodore himself, that he believed Christ to be man only, and not also God, and that he denied the Trinity after the manner of Sabellius, and that he made void all the prophecies made concerning Christ. And these things indeed we judge to suffice for those who with faithful and pious intent wish to know the truth. But for this reason we shall say other things also, since what abounds for faith is not enough for contention.