Gregory to Eulogius, patriarch of Alexandria. As cold water to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country (Proverbs 25:25). But what good news can there be for me, as regards the help of the holy Church, save the life and safety of your most sweet holiness—which, from the light of truth received, both illumines that same Church with the word of preaching, and forms it toward a better way by the examples of its own conduct? But as often as I read over your unanimity in my heart, and recognize that I remain fixed in your heart, I give thanks to Almighty God, since charity cannot be divided by places. For although we are far separated in body, yet in mind we are indivisible.
But our common son Anatolius the deacon has made known to me by his writings that in the royal city no ecclesiastical case was formerly stirred up concerning earthly matters. But I believe that he had announced this to me before your beatitude spoke concerning the case of the Church. And I rejoice, because where it happened that you were present, I do not think that I was absent. For as a minister of truth, a follower of Peter, and a preacher of the holy Church, I know that you could speak those things which ought to sound from the See of the Apostle Peter through the mouth of a teacher. But before these days, when Abramius of Alexandria came, I wrote back to your holiness both what I thought concerning your writings which you published against the heretical Agnoetae, and why I had replied tardily.
But the same Abramius, compelled by the necessity of the voyage, is reported to have lingered long in the city of Naples; and in that same sense which I wrote long ago I now write back thus: that concerning your doctrine against the heretics who are called Agnoetae there was much that we marveled at; but there was nothing that displeased. And in the same sense I had already written much to our common son Anatolius the deacon. But your doctrine so agreed in all things with the Latin Fathers, that it was no wonder to me that in diverse tongues the Spirit was not diverse. For as to what you said concerning the fig tree, in that sense blessed Augustine properly speaks, because when the evangelist added: For it was not yet the time for figs (Mark).
(xi, 13), it is plainly recognized that in the fig tree the Lord had sought fruit in the synagogue, which had the leaves of the Law but did not have the fruit of works. For the Creator of all things could not be ignorant that the fig tree had no fruit; since it was not the season for figs, all could know this. But concerning that which is written, 'That day and hour neither the Son nor the angels know' (Mark XIII, 32), your holiness has judged altogether rightly that it is most certainly to be referred not to the same Son according to that which is the Head, but according to His body, which we are. On which matter the same blessed Augustine in many places employs this same sense (Questions, book LXXXIII, q. 60; book I on the Trinity, ch. 12; on Psalm VI, at the beginning; on Psalm XXXIV, sermon 2).
He also says another thing which may be understood of the same Son, namely that Almighty God sometimes speaks after the manner of men, as He says to Abraham, 'Now I know that thou fearest God' (Genesis XXII, 12). Not that God then came to know that He was feared, but because He then made this same Abraham to recognize that he feared God. For just as we call a day joyful, not that the day itself is joyful, but because it makes us joyful, so also the Almighty Son says that He does not know the day which He causes not to be known; not that He Himself does not know it, but because He in no way permits it to be known. Hence the Father alone is said to know, because the Son, consubstantial with Him, out of that nature by which He is above the angels, has it that He knows what the angels do not know.
Hence this too can be understood more subtly, that the only-begotten, having become incarnate and made for us a perfect man, indeed in the nature of His humanity knows the day and hour of judgment, yet nevertheless He does not know it out of the nature of His humanity. Therefore what He knows in it, He does not know out of it, for God made man knows the day and hour of judgment through the power of His deity; just as also at the wedding, when His Virgin Mother said that the wine was lacking, He answered, 'What is that to me and to thee, woman? My hour is not yet come' (John II, 4). For the Lord of the angels was not subject to an hour, He who among all things He had created had made the hours and the seasons; but because His Virgin Mother, when the wine was wanting, willed that a miracle should be worked through Him, at once it was answered to her:
'What is that to me and to thee, woman?' As if He plainly said: Whence I am able to work a miracle, this is mine from the Father, not from the mother. For from the mother He was able to die, He who out of the nature of the Father worked miracles. Hence also, placed upon the cross, dying He acknowledged that same mother, whom He commended to His disciple, saying, 'Behold thy mother' (John XIX, 27). He said therefore: 'What is that to me and to thee, woman? My hour is not yet come' (John II, 4). Which is to say: In the miracle which I do not have from thy nature, I in no way acknowledge thee. When the hour of death shall come, I acknowledge thee as mother, because whence I am able to die, this I have from thee.
And so the knowledge which He did not have from the nature of His humanity, out of which He was a creature together with the angels, this He denied that He had together with the angels, who are creatures. Therefore God and man knows the day and hour of judgment; but for this reason, because that man is God. Now the matter is exceedingly manifest: whoever is not a Nestorian can in no way be an Agnoite. For he who confesses that the very Wisdom of God was incarnate, with what mind can he say that there is anything which the Wisdom of God is ignorant of? It is written: 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were made by Him' (John I, 1). If all things, then without doubt also the day and hour of judgment. Who then would be so foolish as to presume to say that the Word of the Father made what He does not know?
It is also written: 'Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands' (John XIII, 3). If all things, then assuredly both the day and hour of judgment. Who then is so foolish as to say that the Son received into His hands what He does not know? But concerning that passage in which He says to the women about Lazarus, 'Where have you laid him?' (John XI, 34), we ourselves have felt precisely what you have felt: that if they deny that the Lord knew where Lazarus had been buried, and therefore inquired, without doubt they will be compelled to confess that the Lord did not know in what places Adam and Eve had hidden themselves after their sin, when He said in paradise, 'Adam, where art thou?' (Genesis III, 9); or when He rebukes Cain, saying, 'Where is Abel thy brother?' (Genesis IV, 9).
But if He did not know, why did He at once add, 'The blood of thy brother crieth to me from the earth'? Although in this passage Severian of Gabala says something else, declaring that the Lord said this to the women as it were by way of rebuke, in asking where they had laid the dead Lazarus. As if, plainly recalling the fault of Eve, He said to the women: I placed the man in paradise, whom you have placed in the tomb. To these things, however, that same common son of ours, the deacon Anatolius, answered me with another question, saying:
What if it be objected to me that, just as the Immortal deigned to die that He might free us from death, and the Eternal willed to become temporal before all times, so the Wisdom of God deigned to take upon itself our ignorance, that it might free us from ignorance? But to this I have not yet answered him, because I have hitherto been held by a grave sickness. Now, however, I have begun to recover by your prayer, and to him, if I shall have so perfectly recovered as to be able to dictate, with the Lord's help I will reply; concerning which matters I need say nothing to you, lest I seem to teach what you already know, since I would be applying medicines and healing remedies to limbs already sound and strong. We indicate besides that here we suffer grave difficulty from the translators.
For while there are none who express sense from sense, but they always wish to render the literal propriety of the words, they confound the whole meaning of what is said. Whence it comes about that we can in no way understand the things that have been translated, except with grave labor. Moreover, I have received the blessing of the holy evangelist Mark and of your beatitude. I wished indeed to send the timber; but because the ship which came was small, it could not carry it. Although these very pieces which the Alexandrians on their coming saw are small. For I had prepared other far larger ones for you, which have not yet been hauled to the city of Rome, because I waited that they might be hauled when the Alexandrian ship came, and they remained in the place where they were cut.
May Almighty God guard your life for the edification of the holy Church through long ages, and may He inspire you to pray the more earnestly for me; that he whom his own sins press down, your prayers before Almighty God may lift up. (See epistle 55.)