為三章辯護 第 33 章

But again someone says: How, then, did the synod pronounce orthodox a letter which blamed the blessed Cyril, whom you say proclaimed no such thing? I answer, because that letter proclaimed the faith of the blessed Cyril. For if after the union made between the Easterns and himself it approves his faith, and we moreover believe that the faith of Cyril was always the same, it necessarily follows that even before the union Ibas approved his faith, although he did not know it to be his. Attend, moreover, to the very sentence of the synod, and you will find that, in that letter, dissembling away from human suspicions, it approved those things which pertain to the faith of Christ, for the manifesting and confirming of which it had assembled:

for it would be called orthodox not on account of any honor to Cyril, nor on account of injury to any heretic whatsoever, but on account of the true faith concerning Christ which it contains. But if anyone blames the synod of Chalcedon because, setting aside the suspicion of a man about a man, it pronounced the letter of the venerable Ibas orthodox, he must of necessity blame the blessed Cyril himself, who likewise, despising the same suspicion of his Eastern fellow-priests—who, gathered together with other bishops of various provinces, had condemned his chapters—transferred into his own letter the confession of faith which they sent to him through the venerable bishop Paul, and held communion with them, and professed that he believed and proclaimed the same concerning the mystery of Christ's incarnation;

nor did he seek to have the suspicion which they held about him condemned by them, nay, he did not even deem it necessary to give satisfaction for it. But it is not with the blessed Cyril alone that the synod of Chalcedon is blamed for having pronounced this letter orthodox, but with the whole council of Ephesus, which embraced their communion together. Hence the great synod now seems to be accused, not because it called the letter of the venerable Ibas orthodox, but because it did not itself also reprove the blessed Cyril together with the council of Ephesus. All the things, therefore, which we promised have been set forth.

Recognize, then, that if the synod of Chalcedon were to reprove the letter of the venerable Ibas as heretical, it would rather hence seem to have believed the blessed Cyril a heretic, and to have excused Nestorius, and to have reproved the council of Ephesus. Wherefore in this too the aforesaid synod followed the example of the blessed Cyril himself, or rather of the synod of Ephesus: that as that synod, by prudent reasoning, received the most upright faith concerning Christ of all the Easterns, although they suspected wrongly concerning it, so it too by similar reasoning received the most fitting faith concerning Christ of the letter of Ibas, although it contained certain unfitting suspicions about the blessed Cyril.

Is this holy synod, then, to be believed to have gladly received injuries to the blessed Cyril, whom it is proved to have imitated, in that it dissembled away from most alien suspicions, and whom, unless it dissembled from them, it would be charged with by his own example? Or ought it for this reason not to have absolved the most reverend Ibas, and to have restored to him his bishopric and the Church from which, through the faction of Eutyches, he had unjustly and in his absence been expelled—because he was mistaken in the person of the blessed Cyril, so as at one time to suppose that man to have erred, whose faith he approved not only knowingly after the union made with the Easterns, but also unknowingly before the union? But, they say, after this union he ought not to have spoken such things concerning the blessed Cyril.

But I say that not even before the union ought he to have done so, nay, not even before the synod of Ephesus itself: because Cyril ought first to have been questioned, and then blamed, if he did not give satisfaction. But now we ask this: whether this fault of the venerable Ibas, which, as we have already proved, was noted by the synod too, ought to have been esteemed of such weight that his letter should be pronounced heretical, since it approved the faith of the blessed Cyril himself in the confession which the Easterns had sent to him through bishop Paul to be subscribed, although in those twelve chapters it did not yet understand his intention.

The great synod, recognizing that whether in those chapters or in that confession to which the blessed Cyril subscribed the faith was the same, judged that it made no difference by what words Ibas had approved the faith of Cyril when expressed, since it was established that he had approved what was necessary. Hence it believed nothing else, nor ought it to have believed otherwise, except that the Eastern Fathers—among whom Ibas himself too, and the bishops of other provinces—had too little marked the intention of the chapters of the blessed Cyril, so that they blamed even those things which had been received by the council of Ephesus. Just as at one time, in the divine Trinity, certain catholics were unwilling to accept three hypostases, although they accepted three persons;

Nor were they judged heretics by wise men on that account, since it was found that they had taken offense not at the reality which was signified by that name, but rather at the very name by which it was signified. Hence the letter of Ibas cannot be judged heretical, unless it be said that in the chapters of blessed Cyril the right faith is indeed contained, but that the orthodox confession of the Easterners, to which Ibas subscribed, and which both Ibas and the Synod of Chalcedon received in its definition, is the Nestorian one; and so, that while Ibas and the aforesaid synod are commended, Cyril, after condemning Nestorius, is asserted to have lapsed into the Nestorian heresy.

From this, moreover, the same blessed Cyril was believed not to have held a right opinion at first in his chapters, but to have been afterwards corrected by the admonition of the Easterners; for when the very union of the Churches was being effected, the Eastern Fathers were not compelled to subscribe to his chapters, but he rather was requested to subscribe to the confession directed to him by them. And some believed that he made the retraction of his chapters after the Synod of Ephesus, not in order that things which had been closed to certain people might be opened, and that what seemed obscure might be made clear, but rather in order to correct in them his former error, by which it was supposed (as the Eutychians still imagine) that he had said there was one nature of Christ.

Hence, then, it came about that, the conversion of blessed Cyril having taken place, the union was believed in. And in truth, who would not be seized by this suspicion (we are speaking of human hearts, and we bear human hearts), when the Eastern Fathers who judged these chapters to need correcting were in no way compelled to correct anything; whereas blessed Cyril, being requested beforehand, not only subscribed to the confession of faith which those men had dictated as they believed necessary, but even retracted his very own chapters? But concerning that objection which is raised and stated, namely that they spoke not so much against blessed Cyril as against the Synod of Ephesus, because by understanding too little they thought ill of those chapters already received,

in the following book, since it seems more opportune there, we shall say many things, and, as I judge, things not to be despised. But if it is heretical to have believed that Cyril was converted, why, I beseech you, is not blessed Theophilus all the more to be called a heretic, who wrote such and so great things against the holy John of Constantinople—to whose authority and teaching the Church of Christ owes far greater veneration—that even we, in merely recalling them, can be excused only by sheer necessity? "Brethren," he says, "John persecutes by the unclean spirit by which Saul was choked"; and again, "he has slain the ministers of the saints."

He calls him defiled, and impious in the Church of the firstborn, pestilent, raving, and frenzied with the madness of a tyrannical mind, and glorying in his own madness, having handed over his soul to the devil to be adulterated. And all these things we have set down just as they stand in Theophilus's own first book. He calls him also an enemy of humanity, and one who by his crime had surpassed the audacity of robbers, a prince of the sacrilegious and one carrying on an impious priesthood, and offering sacrilegious oblations, shameless and of most hardened brow. Adding this too, that John is not held entangled in such snares as might at some time be loosed, but is one who would hear God threatening according to the desert of his crime and saying: "Judge between me and John":

"I waited that he should do judgment, but he did iniquity, and not justice, but a cry." He says also that, just as Satan transfigured himself into an angel of light, so too John was not what he seemed; and he calls him not merely like Satan, but an unclean demon, dragging the filth of words after the manner of a torrent, whom he also declares to have been impious against Christ and a partner of Judas the traitor. He adds besides that he is convicted of having stretched out impious hands against God; and that what the apostle James said of certain men greedy for worldly things, "You ask and you receive not, because you ask amiss" (James 4:3), this blessed Theophilus asserts that blessed John said concerning Christ.

"He dared," he says, "to say in church that Christ prayed and was not heard, because he prayed not rightly." Which of the heretics blasphemed more wickedly than blessed Theophilus reports blessed John to have blasphemed—whom he affirms to have handed himself over to fellowship with Jewish impiety, and with his accustomed rashness to offer what the Jews offered, deceiving himself and the people, and an emulator of Dathan and Abiron? "Let him hear," he says, "together with the Jews: iniquity is exalted exceedingly." He adds this also: "The Arians and Eunomians delight in the blasphemies of John against Christ; the Jews and idolaters, in comparison with you, are justified as Gentiles." And again he says:

"Not only is John no Christian, but he is worse than the king of Babylon, far more wicked than Belshazzar; John is more wicked than idolaters and pagans. To you," he says, "present ignominy, and eternal punishment in the ages to come, shall be rendered." This too it seemed good to the same blessed Theophilus to say: "The Saviour cried out and said, Take John away and cast him into the outer darkness." And again: "He has supplied most abundant fuel before the tribunal of God for his own burning." And all these things did not suffice for his wrath and fury, unless he also said this concerning the aforementioned most holy man John: that some other punishment must be sought for him, because the magnitude of his crime would surpass the multitude of torments.

But if anyone should wish to verify that we have set down not merely the substance but the very words, and to learn how often these things were repeated by him, let him read his huge book—a book exceedingly horrible not only for its insults but for the very oft-repeated recapitulation of curses—translated by Jerome the presbyter. Concerning which the same blessed Theophilus expected that, through his (Jerome's) eloquence, the Latins should come to know what sort of man John was. We, however, in that book recognize not what sort John was—who deserved none of these things—nor what sort Theophilus was, whose virtue, proven in many things, is not to be judged from this disease that came upon him; but rather what sort the wretched human life is, of which it is written:

"For temptation is the life of man upon earth" (Job 7:1). For if such things befell such men, what is there that we ought not to fear, who are by birth like them? But here I would wish to ask those judges of the dead, who, for the destruction of the Synod of Chalcedon, wish us too to judge concerning the dead, by what reasoning, by what justice, it should be reckoned a crime of heresy to have said that Cyril was converted, while Theophilus is not judged a heretic—who charged the holy John, the most illustrious doctor of the Church, with having said that Christ prayed and was not heard because he prayed not rightly, and with having preached such things that the Arians and Eunomians delight in his blasphemies against Christ, but also the Jews and idolaters; and who handed himself over to Jewish impiety.

But if they have nothing to answer—seeing that they judge Theophilus not to be called a heretic on account of human injuries—let them likewise cease to accuse the Synod of Chalcedon of having judged in this manner concerning the letter of the venerable Ibas. Moreover, blessed Cyril, following the opinion of this his predecessor the venerable Theophilus, himself also afterwards, as we taught in the fourth book, even against the judgment of the Apostolic See—which through the most blessed Pope Innocent had loosed the condemnation of the aforesaid holy John while he was set in exile—forbade his name after his death to be recited among God's priests in the sacrifice;

and, just as his predecessor Theophilus had said that the Arians delighted in his blasphemies, so he too compared him with the Arian bishop Eudoxius; nor on account of this estimation did anyone judge either Theophilus or Cyril a heretic, since the cause that merits this name is something far other. The holy synod, considering this also in the letter of the venerable Ibas, and disregarding and setting aside a man's suspicions concerning a man, pronounced it orthodox on account of the true confession of the Christian faith which it contains.

And it is to be believed that the synod foresaw this also: that if it judged the letter heretical on account of the very slight and bygone suspicion which its author held, together with the Easterners and bishops of various provinces, concerning blessed Cyril, then by far more, on the same reasoning, would Theophilus be judged a heretic—who said that John had been impious against Christ, and had dared to say in church that Christ prayed and was not heard because he prayed not rightly; and that the Arians and Eunomians delighted in his blasphemies against Christ, and the Jews too and idolaters.

And this suspicion of his was neither slight nor transitory, but one which he handed on even to his own successor Cyril, so that he too should shut John out from the walls of the Church, and call him a Judas and a Jechoniah, and a profane man, and reckon him as one to be compared with Eudoxius, the bishop of the Arians. Not justly, therefore, is it said that the holy synod ought to have condemned the letter of Ibas as heretical on account of the suspicion which its author, together with many, once held concerning blessed Cyril: since rather, if it had presumed this, it would thereby—as has often been shown—make blessed Cyril himself appear damnable. For who even of those very calumniators would deny that Cyril wrote graver things about the holy John than Ibas wrote about Cyril?

But these scandals, or any such, which rightly offend us in the Fathers—whom God set as lights in His Church, that we might be illumined from above by their excellent knowledge and teaching—seem to me to be regarded just as we regard the very eclipses of the lights of heaven: which, though they sometimes suffer detriment to their splendor, nevertheless do not cease to be the lights they are. And it often indeed happens that these lights of the Church too, since they are separated from us by so great a height, by reason of a certain cloud of our ignorance, while they remain shining in themselves, appear to us obscured.

Let it therefore be regarded as a kind of eclipse of the lights Theophilus and Cyril, that they spoke such horrible things about the great light John of Constantinople. Let it likewise be regarded as another eclipse, as it were, of the lights of the Easterners or of the other Fathers who had assembled with them from various provinces, that, somewhat obscured by a defect of understanding, they esteemed otherwise than the matter stood concerning the light Cyril. For those whom Christ has preserved in the stable peace of His Church, as in the firmament of heaven, it behooves us to venerate and to receive;

and not to stir up endless contentions about their controversies already settled, and rashly to condemn the dead, but rather to consider that we ourselves are about to die, and rather to believe—as befits Christian piety—that for their labors in the Church of Christ, and for the merit of the peace which they preserved for the Church, if there were certain things they could not amend, in which they sinned against some private persons not by diabolical envy but by human error, before they passed from this life, the indulgence of the Lord remitting (whom they ceased not to entreat, that He would not remember the sins of their youth and of their ignorance), they are at rest with Him, securely awaiting the judgment of eternal recompense.

Wherefore we ought to fear, lest those whom we now judge here—where all things are lawful to us, but not all things are expedient—when the Son of Man shall come to judge in His majesty, and all the angels with Him, and all the nations shall be gathered before Him, should themselves be our judges. And there ought to be present to us in this place too that reasoning and likeness which we gave in the earlier book, when we were treating of the interlocution of the venerable Anatolius, prelate of Constantinople, by which he pronounced that Dioscorus was not condemned for the faith: since just as this did not make him a heretic—because he wished Dioscorus himself to be excused from perfidy, inasmuch as it is one thing to excuse a heretic on the ground that he is thought catholic, and another to approve and defend the heresy itself—

so neither could the letter of the venerable Ibas justly be deemed heretical, even if it be affirmed that it did not narrate the matter as it appeared at the time, but accused blessed Cyril: inasmuch as it is one thing to accuse a catholic on the ground that he is thought a heretic, and another to disapprove and reprehend the catholic faith itself. And just as it profited the defense of the venerable Anatolius what we there said—that a man who approves and loves chastity can, without approving fornication, approve a fornicator, while he is deceived about the person—

so too let it profit the defense of the most reverend Ibas, and of the other Easterners and of the prelates of other provinces, what we there consequently added—that a man who approves and loves chastity can, without disapproving chastity, disapprove a chaste man, while he is likewise deceived about the person. For if the venerable Ibas, or the others whom we mentioned, the Eastern bishops and those of other provinces, were deceived rather in the person of blessed Cyril than in the very rule of faith—just as Cyril himself, together with Theophilus, was deceived about blessed John—which the holy synod also understood, so that it both pronounced that man's letter orthodox and received those men as Fathers.

But we, through contention and vainglory, which we everywhere strive to acquire even out of presumption, judging ourselves wiser than so great a synod, have dragged a most trivial suspicion about a person into the rule of faith, and—as if we had not merely enlarged a mote into a beam (which, though not of the same size, is yet of the same kind), but turned a contemptible straw into an enormous battering-ram—we have stirred up something which would shake and harass the whole world of the Roman Empire in vain. But who could worthily consider, who could suffice to explain in words, how wisely God uses even human ignorance for the instruction of the predestined, whose omnipotent goodness, when it so wills, turns whatever is harmful to great usefulness?

For that ignorance of his fellow-priests concerning blessed Cyril, which had once been contrary to the peace of the Churches, if anyone well considers it, now profits the instruction and assertion of the Church. For it is a more evident proof of the true faith if the same opinion concerning it is found to have belonged to those who were at variance with one another, than if it belonged to those at peace. For although the Eastern bishops, together with others, thought ill of blessed Cyril, and on this account even vehemently assailed him, yet, with the venerable Paul of Emesa mediating, we have learned that both parties were contending for one and the same faith: since the Easterners expected nothing else to be confessed by blessed Cyril than what the Church has always held and holds;

and blessed Cyril accomplished with great exultation what was expected, receiving with longing their confession concerning the mystery of the divine incarnation, and attesting it to be his own. Hence he who thinks well of Cyril, who believes him to have been truly of apostolic affection, ought to consider how greatly he could have exulted, seeing the zeal of the Fathers—especially of the Easterners—burning against him on behalf of the truth of the faith which he himself also held.

For that most holy man would not have weighed so heavily the fact that his colleagues were deceived about him, as he weighed the fact that they contended for the truth of the catholic faith; and he preferred that his fellow-priests should condemn, without respect of persons, the error into which they had supposed him to have fallen, rather than that they should defend him in his person—which would have been contrary to the truth. Let us hear the Apostle saying to the Galatians: "But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema. As we said before, so now I say again: if anyone preach to you a gospel besides that which you have received, let him be anathema" (Gal. 1:8-9).

Since, then, the Apostle preferred that not only he himself, but even an angel from heaven, preaching otherwise than he had preached, should be anathema, rather than that the faithful of Christ should be moved from the firmness of the Gospel preached to them: how greatly is blessed Cyril to be believed to have been able to rejoice, when he saw himself assailed by his fellow-priests on account of that faith which he held and which he wished to be held by all! For the fact that they were deceived about him—he believed neither that the standing of the Christian faith rested there, nor did he reckon that they would long remain so, since it was in his power (which he afterwards did) to disclose the reasoning of his sayings, and to calm the disturbances of those who esteemed otherwise.

But that they faithfully, that they constantly asserted those things which belonged to the truth—although it had not been necessary that they be asserted against him—there, he judged, stood the condition of the right faith, there his salvation and theirs, there the firmness of all the Churches henceforth: that no one should any longer doubt about the sacrament of the Lord's incarnation, concerning which one and the same opinion was found even among those at variance and thinking otherwise about himself. Why then, faint-hearted as we are, are we saddened by the joy of the magnanimous Cyril? Why do we disturb the Church over that very thing whereby she ought to be defended from all disturbances? Why do we give the heretics cause to laugh over that very thing whereby they ought to have been confounded by us?

But all this is done by headlong and ignorant rashness, which neither knows how to answer those who contradict, nor acquiesces in the definitions of the Fathers. Hence it is that it is easily deceived; hence it is entangled in the circumventions of the heretics, being more restless than strong. We, however—which is the prior and safer course—subject with a placid and humble heart to the constitutions of the holy Fathers, are strengthened by their authority. Thereafter we also understand that the holy synod, prudently distinguishing the intention of Eutyches and of Ibas, just as it justly condemned the former as sacrilegious, and pronounced his teaching heretical—although it praised blessed Cyril—because it disapproves the faith of that very Cyril, which ought rather to have been attended to:

so it justly absolved the most reverend Ibas, and pronounced his letter orthodox—although it found fault with blessed Cyril—because it approves the faith of that very Cyril, which ought rather to have been attended to. See what that illustrious bishop, that most zealous despiser of vainglory and most sincere lover of truth, Augustine, says: "In the exordium of my books, someone will be of the opinion that I held what I did not hold: of whose error no one is ignorant that it ought not to be imputed to me, if, as it were following me and not laying hold of me, they have deviated into some falsity, while I am compelled to make my way through certain dense and shadowy places."

"—since not even to the holy authorities of the divine books themselves can anyone rightly impute the so many and varied errors of the heretics: seeing that all of them try to defend their false and deceptive opinions out of those same Scriptures. The law of Christ plainly admonishes me, and by its most sweet command bids me—that is, charity—that when men think I held something false in my books which I did not hold, and that very falsity displeases another, I should rather be reprehended by the reprehender of the falsity than praised by the praiser of it. For by the former, although I, who did not hold this, am wrongly censured, yet the error is rightly censured;

"—but by the latter I am not rightly praised, by whom I am thought to have held what truth censures, nor is the very opinion which truth censures." If, therefore, we think well at all of blessed Cyril, if we ascribe to him any prudence or charity, let us believe also of him, together with that just man Augustine endowed with wisdom and piety, that when he was falsely thought to have held in his chapters what he did not hold, he preferred to be reprehended by Ibas the reprehender of the falsity, than to be praised by Eutyches its praiser. And if he were now living, he too, questioned by us, could answer and say: "By my venerable brother Ibas and my other fellow-priests, although I, who did not hold this, am wrongly censured, yet the error itself is rightly censured;

by the abominable man Eutyches and his accomplices, neither am I rightly praised—by whom I am thought to have held what truth censures—nor is the very opinion which truth commands."