Many things indeed have been said by which we have on every side cut away the calumnies of the Eutychians, who accuse the great Council of Chalcedon even in the matter of Theodore. For what now remains whence they might find ground of complaint, since we have not only demolished those things which it has been shown they fabricated, but also, of our own accord—that we might mock them—granted them many things which were not even fabricated, and thus have nonetheless taught that the same synod is defended by invincible and evident reasoning? Yet, because we wished to prove to them more fully than we did in the foregoing how they accuse the teaching of many Fathers—whom they too say that they honor along with us—in the condemnation of Theodore's doctrines;
and because we contend not so much on behalf of the aforesaid synod, which has already been amply and abundantly cleared, as on behalf of those same Fathers; we have resolved in this volume to bring forward similar sayings of great men, in order to excuse, more difficultly, him whom they thought should be struck with anathema as the master of Nestorius: so that in very many examples they may see that the most wise John of Antioch, writing with the Eastern council to the blessed Cyril concerning certain chapters of the aforesaid Theodore, said: «But to those things of his which we are thought to find obscure, we find many similar things said also by very many of his predecessors and by glorious Fathers;
and no light danger hangs over us, lest, in condemning the words of this man, we also loose those others—a man who died in the episcopate, but was everywhere adorned, throughout his whole life, with ten thousand contests against the Arians and Eunomians and other heretics: for if this be done, we shall have to retract many things aptly said by other holy Fathers as well.» And after some words: «For who,» he says, «among us hopes not to die? Or by whom has nothing been said that might offend another?»
And indeed this protestation of so great a council would have sufficed to restrain the audacity of the rash—the protestation that they will find many things similar to the chapters which they blame in Theodore (chapters which gave occasion to the contrary doctrine by which they were held) said also by very many earlier and glorious Fathers. But since now he is not believed, who hitherto was rightly believed, and his sound reasoning is despised by which he again says, Or by whom has nothing been said that might offend another?—we are compelled by necessity to bring forward some things from those same many similar sayings of the Fathers, and to press them at the point where they can offend the mouth,
so that the Eutychians and their satellites may not be able to dissemble that, in the condemnation of Theodore's doctrines, the teaching of those very Fathers, in which similar things are found, is of necessity condemned as well. For the blessed Eustathius, bishop of Antioch, who was first in the Council of Nicaea, in his sixth book against the Arians, concerning that which the Lord said: No one knows that day (Matt. 24:36): «Let us say,» he says, «for what reason the Son of Man is ignorant of the day of his own advent. For there is no doubt that this too the Creator of all and the Maker of the race, God, devised in his providence for the benefit of men. For just as for the sake of men's salvation he joined the man to the Word and to God,
so too, for the sake of the divine benefit, he fittingly hid from the man the day of the notable judgment; lest perchance the man, disclosing ineffable mysteries to men of a like race, should also reveal the day of the second advent.» What of the kind, I ask, have the Eutychians hitherto found, or feigned that they find, in the words of Theodore against the Council of Chalcedon? For—to pass over the fact that here he says, the Son of Man is ignorant of the day of his own advent, and did not even say, was ignorant, so that he might be seen to have said he was ignorant only before the resurrection, and not also after the resurrection, when no ignorance will remain even in his faithful—
—so that I may pass over this, as I said, since it can easily be said that the blessed Eustathius spoke with reference to that time which Christ here spent before the resurrection. And so that I may leave aside also this, that he says, He joined the man to the Word and to God for the sake of men's salvation—which the Eutychians would without doubt accuse in Theodore, if he himself said it, as though the man first existed who was joined to the Word and to God: that, certainly, which he says, that the day of judgment was fittingly hidden from Christ, lest the man should reveal to men of a like race the day of the second advent, we know that the Eutychians have hitherto not accused in Theodore, nor anything of the kind that might be compared to this saying.
For when the Apostle, caught up into paradise, heard secret words which it is not lawful for a man to utter, and disclosed them to no one, but was found a faithful keeper of the divine secret, how is it said that God hid the day of judgment from Christ—I will not say as from God, which he is, but only as from a man who was nevertheless not inferior to Paul—lest he should disclose it to men of a like race: as though he could not keep entrusted to him a secret, which the Apostle kept for him? And yet that too which Eustathius says, that men are similar to Christ in race, the Eutychians would not lightly pass over in Theodore; but they would surely calumniate him for it, that he believed Christ to be man only, and not also God, since he had proclaimed all men to be similar to him in race.
Likewise in the same book: «When the Son of Man shall sit,» he says, «on the seat of his majesty (Matt. 19:28), one person indeed seems to be speaking, but he plainly makes his discourse about another. Therefore the divine Spirit appears to be speaking openly about the man: When the Son of Man shall sit on the seat of his majesty—announcing without contradiction that the man, adorned with righteousness and virtue, received the glories that supervened, and duly attained the lofty throne of the kingdom.» What do we say even here? Did Theodore anywhere treat the words of Christ speaking of himself in such a way as to say that one person speaks of another, just as the blessed Eustathius did, when he treated his words saying: When the Son of Man shall sit on the seat of his majesty?
Do they not, concerning all the things for which they blame Theodore, try to gather, suspiciously or calumniously, this: that in Christ he wished one person of God and another of man to be understood? Which he indeed expresses only obscurely; but Eustathius says openly, in the words of the one Christ speaking of himself, that one person manifestly makes discourse about another, and appears to speak clearly not about God but about the man: When the Son of Man shall sit on the seat of his majesty.
Indeed, neither could the Eutychians bear in Theodore that which he says, The man, adorned with righteousness and virtue, received the glories that supervened; but they would without doubt accuse him, as though saying that Christ was only a man, not also God, to whom there accrued a glory which he did not have before, and which he attained by the progress of righteousness and virtue, and that, by so great a merit, he also duly received the throne of the kingdom. And again, in the same book, disputing about the words of Christ, he says: «All things have been delivered to me by my Father (Matt. 11:27)—he is clearly known to prophesy from the person of the man, as we have proved before. For this man receives the greatest and accidental virtues, advancing in dignity toward better things.»
Behold, here too, when he asserts that Christ in speaking prophesies from the person of the man, it is implied that he says there is another person of God. For when, speaking also of the man, he said: For this man receives the greatest and accidental virtues, it is just as much as if he said: But that one, as God, does not receive them. By saying also that Christ, by the reception of accidental virtues, advanced toward better things, he testifies that he received what at some time he did not have, and that he made progress. And in his eighth book likewise he says: «But it is to be contemplated how, speaking to God and saying: And you have destroyed the cities (Ps. 9:7), he again introduces another Lord, adding: And the Lord abides forever. He has prepared his seat in judgment (ibid. 8, 9).»
For most manifestly he appears to be speaking of one as of another: he signified that the judge is the one who prepared the seat for him, as for one not previously having this honor; thus he seemed to speak, as though indicating through prophetic figures that the man, fittingly made a temple from the members of righteousness, and dwelling in the most holy Word, attained the perpetual throne of virtue. «Speaking,» he says, «to God, he again introduces another Lord.» If the Eutychians found this in Theodore, they would surely, in reproof of the Council of Chalcedon—which judged the letter containing his praises to be orthodox—bind us with a two-headed argument, saying thus: If he said these things of the Father and the Son, how is the Son another Lord, since it is written:
The Lord our God, the Lord is one (Deut. 6:4)? For the Father is not called Lord, and the Son Lord, and the Holy Spirit Lord, in such a way that there are three Lords, and not rather one is called Lord: just as neither is the Father called God, and the Son God, and the Holy Spirit God, in such a way that there are three Gods, and not rather one is called God. But if, speaking of God the Word and of the assumed man, he called the assumed man another Lord with respect to the same, he is convicted of having divided the one Christ into two Lords. And this they would affirm also by the words that follow, in which it is said: He appears to be speaking of one as of another; and again: That God the judge prepared a seat for the assumed man, as for one not previously having this honor.
But while they accuse with such great ill-will, in the letter of the venerable Ibas, the fact that it says «the temple and the one dwelling in it»—words which would suffice them for exaggeration—what if he had said what Eustathius says, That the man was fittingly made a temple from the members of righteousness, so as to dwell together with the most holy Word? For if they say that «to dwell in,» which Ibas says, signifies two persons, since the soul dwelling in its own body is one person together with it, how much more «to dwell together with,» and that by the virtue of that very cohabitation the man attained the perpetual throne? Likewise in the same book: «For he who has the throne of the kingdom does not, he says, prepare another lot for himself; but rather he for whom the power of the throne is not at hand. Therefore these things manifestly look to the man of Christ.»
«Nor are these things to be attributed to the Almighty, who has his own scepter; nor to the Word, who has that very kingdom which the Father also has; but it is to be said of Christ: The Lord has prepared his seat in heaven. For he is the ruler of all creatures together, on account of the commixture of the divine Word.» Let them attend, then, to what manner of thing this too is, which he says: That not to God the Word, who has the kingdom, was another lot prepared, but rather to him for whom the power of the throne is not at hand—that is, to the man of Christ. Nor did he even say, to the man of God the Word; and he asserts that this very Christ, for whose man he declares the seat to have been prepared, rules over all creatures together with God the Father and his Word.
Yet not even for these things, which a secure simplicity spoke before Nestorius had yet arisen, is his teaching to be anathematized: which can then be established for us, if the words of none of the ancient preachers of the Church are condemned for such things. Otherwise, if the writings of any one of them be anathematized—as the most wise John and the Eastern council said—it is necessary to embrace also those things which were said by other Fathers. Let it suffice, then, for posterity that, resisting the heretics of their own times, they kept the Church unharmed. Let it suffice that, preparing for us too, by their labor and industry, very many weapons against them, they passed from this world with great praise.
Successors do not owe injury to the labor of those who have departed; reproaches are not to be returned. After the contest, let someone ungrateful be found to have denied the glory of triumph to victors well deceased: I do not know whether anyone besides us has returned insult. A certain preacher of the Church so assailed the heretics present in his day that he gave occasion to those of the future in nothing, or at least in little: let him be judged worthy of especial praise. But a certain other, intent upon the enemies before him, met with foresight and vigilance those who would one day arise—others not as though lurking in ambush, who did not yet exist: let him be reckoned worthy of the least praise, or even of none, if it so seems; yet he is not on that account to be held an unwary defender of his fatherland among the enemy.
Hence the blessed Eustathius, although he could offend many by such sayings, is nevertheless not condemned as the author of the Nestorian error: but he is honored with many and above many Fathers, as being the first existing in the Council of Nicaea; and, with the Eutychians stirring up no ill-will from this quarter, he is solemnly named at the sacrifices among his predecessors and successors. And perhaps for this reason they accuse nothing thence, because in this, the last testimony we cited, he said, On account of the commixture of the divine Word. For wherever the aforesaid Eutychians find it said by any preacher of the Church that God the Word was commixed with the man, they suppose it said according to their own doctrine.