But I beg, most merciful emperor, that thou wouldst receive my reasonings either gladly or patiently. For I have set out to demonstrate that, for the defence of the same faith which thou holdest, and for the keeping of the Chalcedonian decrees, by which it is both made manifest and confirmed, I have not deemed it right to consent to those who have lately brought forward a sentence contrary to them. For the restless and shameless spirit of the heretics, which is ready and prompt to assail ancient ordinances, is always lifted up to its own confusion, because it has often been frustrated; and when, with evident contradiction, it strove to overturn the decrees of the Council of Chalcedon, now creeping in with crooked and hidden malice, it has believed that the snares of its faction cannot be perceived.
But it found the occasion it desired out of the madness of certain persons who, under the Christian name, secretly follow in the Church the heathen dogma of Origen. And because, through the diligence of thy religious zeal, a renewed condemnation of that same profane dogma was made, hence its followers were inflamed against the Church, seeking to disturb it by whatever means of infiltration they could.
And all this did not escape public notice, especially since even Domitian, bishop of the city of Ancyra in the first province of Galatia, who had been a manifest champion of that very Origenian heresy, confessed in a petition which he wrote to the most blessed Pope Vigilius — God wresting it from him — that his accomplices the Origenists, when they saw that they could not defend their own dogma, nor that any hope of the conflict remained to them, stirred up these scandals against the Church in revenge for the things that had been done against Origen.
Employing therefore the support of these men, the perfidy of the Eutychians, which by itself had often vainly attempted things against the Council of Chalcedon, secretly assailed it through those very men who did not seem to us suspect in this matter. Yet not even they presumed openly to reprehend the great synod; rather, under a certain colour of defence — which their deceitful promise commended to thy piety — they endeavoured to weaken its strength.
For they boasted, as thou knowest very well, that all the Eutychians who are offended by its decrees would communicate with the Church, if the letter of the venerable Ibas, bishop of Edessa, written to Maris the Persian — which the aforesaid synod, when the said Ibas was accused on its account as injurious to the blessed Cyril, pronounced orthodox — were indeed condemned as Nestorian, but it were denied that it had been approved by the synod.
Doing this craftily, so that, while they call in the unwary and the ignorant — on the ground that the synod could be defended by a false and most shameless denial — whatever lies the Eutychians might dictate in reprehension of that letter, none now resisting or busying himself about it, our men (which is greatly to be lamented) might write things to be affirmed by their subscriptions: so that when afterwards it should be shown — which was very easy by the mere production of the records — that it had been received by that council, nothing now would remain that we could answer to the Eutychians, who were always defaming it as of Nestorian dogma.
While these men therefore acted so fraudulently, and promised I know not what unity — which, even if it had followed, ought rather to be called confusion — that execrable and horrible thing was conceded: that the letter which those holy and venerable Fathers had approved as orthodox should be anathematized, not alone at least, but together with its approvers. And therefore, in order to meet such wicked audacity, since we have sufficiently experienced the custom of those very Eutychians, that they impose the crime of the Nestorians upon all who resist them for the truth, I have resolved first of all to lay open the faith which I hold concerning the saving Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, not only in plain speech — which I have already done in the approbation of thy confession,
but also to affirm it by necessary documents, and to defend it against its assailants: that I may avoid, by as great a manifestation of the truth as I am able, the calumnies of those whose frauds and lies I have proposed to expose, and whose errors I have proposed to refute. And I do this lest, by the defaming of our name, they turn aside the minds of any simple persons who do not know us from the recognition of the truth which we are about to make known. For this too is well ascertained, that not only the Eutychians, convicted of their own vanity, accuse us of being Nestorians, but the Nestorians themselves, whom no less our defence of the faith refutes, on the contrary charge us with the Eutychian heresy.
And although we neither dread these things, nor wonder at them as though new — since at one time the Arians likewise falsely defamed our fathers as Sabellians, and the Sabellians as Arians — yet it behoves us nevertheless, as the Apostle admonishes (Rom. 12:17), to provide things good not only before God, but also before all men, and to forestall the accusations of detractors, especially in a cause of faith. And let these things be said for the satisfaction of those who, being ignorant of that necessity, attend less vigilantly even to the things that are said. But the more intelligent will surely recognize how much the defence of the faith — which is common to me with thy piety — profits also the defence of the present cause.
For if I shall have proved that the letter which that synod approved rightly and prudently resists the Nestorians and Eutychians — which we have already shown above to agree with the definitions of the great Council of Chalcedon — it will seem altogether absurd that the letter which that synod approved should be believed to be Nestorian, seeing that by its very own definitions it so skilfully meets the deceit of the Nestorians. Then, since on account of these things the Nestorians and Eutychians calumniate it, whether in the sentence brought forth concerning the letter of Ibas, or in other matters this way and that, all their endeavour will be in vain, and they will labour to no purpose.
They will recognize, when we assert our faith, that the decrees of that very synod are confirmed—the very decrees which, in order to weaken them, they attempt by a deceitful and roundabout course to deprive of their authority in other matters. Since, therefore, the proposed order serves both the defender and the defense of the cause, we shall in this volume briefly defend the three points mentioned above. For what more clearly proves us, against the slandering Eutychians, to be utterly free from the deceit of the Nestorians, than if we assert these two things: namely, that one of the Trinity was crucified for us, and that blessed Mary is rightly called, truly and properly, the Mother of God?
Or again, what could demonstrate us, against the slandering Nestorians, to be further removed from the discord of the Eutychians, than that we should also add this third point: that the same Lord of ours Jesus Christ is perfect in two natures, that is, in divinity and humanity?