文集 第 3 章 第 3/8 段

Nor let the Arian heresy hold them bound here by an insoluble noose of a question, using such a syllogism of objection: If the Son of God, born of a human mother, had nothing from her that was of human nature, then without doubt, born of the Father, He had nothing from Him that could be of the same nature. 'For if you truly assert,' he says, 'that the Son was born of the Virgin and did not have the nature of the maternal body, grant me also, on equal terms, who confess that the same Son, born of the Father, cannot have the nature of the Father.' Why then, O Eutychianists, do you submit your necks to such mighty objections of perfidy, and pass from falsehood to falsehood, so as to confess that the Son begotten of the Father is an exile from the nature of the paternal divinity,

just as you confess that the same Son, begotten of the mother, did not have the nature of the maternal, that is, the human, body? Why do you not rather, if you have any wisdom, destroy the falsehood by the truth—so that, just as you believe, and truly believe, that the Son born of the Father without time has the nature of the Father, so you may believe that the same Son, born of the mother without seed, has the nature of the human body? III. For what did the angel say to Mary? 'The Holy Spirit,' he says, 'shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee; and therefore the holy one that shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God' (Luke I, 35). He did not say, 'that shall be born through thee,' so as to indicate, as it were, a bare passage of the Word through the Virgin;

but, 'that shall be born of thee,' so as to declare more manifestly the truth of the body to be assumed from the Virgin. For what was the reason for God the Word to make a passage through the womb of the Virgin, if He sought to assume nothing therefrom? Or how is He believed to have been born, or made, of the seed of David, if He is denied to have assumed a body from the lineage of his race? Finally, the apostle Paul says thus: 'Concerning His Son, who was made to Him of the seed of David according to the flesh' (Rom. I, 3). And again to the Galatians: 'God sent,' he says, 'His Son, made of a woman' (Gal. IV, 4).

How is He who already was 'made,' since to be made is wont to be proper to him who never before subsisted, except because, made what He was not—that is, man—He assumed flesh from no other source than from the race of men, from which He was made what He had not been? Whence also the Son Himself speaks of being formed from the womb through Isaiah, saying: 'And now the Lord saith, who formed me from the womb to be His servant' (Isa. XLIX, 5). What, then, do you take to have been formed from the womb—the Word, or the flesh? If the Word, then it was either formless, or wholly non-existent, so that the formation either gave it its essence, that it might subsist; or advanced it from a subsisting formlessness of matter into a better quality of state, that it might appear perfect and entire.

Since to think such a thing is impious and sacrilegious, that other conclusion without doubt remains: that the flesh was formed from the body of the virginal womb; according to which, on account of the union of person, though He is God, He was made the servant of the Father. Whence He says to Him in the psalm: 'O Lord, I am Thy servant, and the son of Thy handmaid' (Ps. CXV, 16). And again: 'From the womb of my mother Thou art my God' (Ps. XXI, 11). And if He had received nothing from the womb of His handmaid mother, the condition of a servile nature would not hold Him within the appellation of a servant. IV. But now let us see by what figures the prophecy is wont to show that He assumed the true nature of flesh from the truth of the maternal body. Isaiah therefore says:

'There shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse, and a branch shall ascend out of his root, and the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him' (Isa. XI, 1). Who would doubt that the branch receives the form of its subsistence from the nature of that same shoot whence it springs? Or who would deny that the rod of any tree propagates the buds of its own nature? For that each tree produces not one thing from another, but a species of its own kind, both the customary examples of things attest, and the authority of the divine writings teaches, which speaks thus in Genesis: 'And God said: Let the earth bring forth the green herb, and such as may bear seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after its kind, which may have seed in itself upon the earth. And it was so done' (Gen. I, 11).

If, then, trees produce out of themselves the buds and fruit of their own kind and of their own nature and of their proper quality, there is no doubt that the rod of the root of Jesse, that is, the blessed Mary, brought forth the bud of her own nature, that is, the Lord Jesus Christ, out of the matter of her own flesh. Into the mystery of which renowned sacrament, the rod of the priest Aaron, without the work and aid of earthly tillage, without the accustomed and lawful nourishments of rural ministry, being placed in the tabernacle of the covenant, budded; designating by a sufficiently manifest and open sign that the Virgin Mary, without the office of earthly, that is, human, seed, would bring forth Christ the Lord. Which is also shown in Daniel by a sure presage of the future mystery (Dan.

II, 34), when a stone is seen to be cut from a mountain without hands; that is, Christ is shown as about to be born from the body of the Virgin without the work of human intercourse. Who will be of so dull and alien a mind as to believe that a stone was cut from a mountain without hands, and not to believe that Christ was born from the body of the Virgin without seed—since the former was only seen, while the latter was most truly done? For that what was to be done wonderfully in Christ might be believed, the wonderful image of that same deed went before; that, just as a stone could be cut from a mountain without hands, and just as a rod could bud without turf, so Christ could be born of the Virgin without seed.

This also Jacob declares in his blessings, when, under the person of Judah, he fits the prophecy and directs it toward Christ, saying: 'Thou hast ascended to me from the bud' (Gen. XLIX, 9). He did not say 'from the seed,' but 'from the bud'—of that rod, without doubt, which, sprung from the root born of Jesse, by a new kind of miracle, budded forth Christ the Lord. V. But let us look also at the other likenesses by which it is shown that Christ assumed the nature of flesh from the race of men. The calf, or ox, the lamb and the kid, called by the same name the Lord—not even the heretics themselves dare to deny. Let them therefore read, and they will find, at the beginning of Leviticus (chap.

I, 2), where in the mystery of the future Passion a calf is commanded to be immolated at the door of the tabernacle of testimony—not simply 'a calf,' but called 'a calf from the herd of oxen.' In which indeed the prophet demonstrates that Christ, not as it pleases the heretics, brought down a body from heaven, but assumed flesh from the race of men. For it would have sufficed to say 'a calf'; what need was there to add 'from the oxen'? For who would not know that a calf is born from oxen? Unless it were to show that Christ would have flesh from men. Abraham too, not ignorant of this sacrament, is described as having chosen a calf from the herd (Gen. XVIII, 7), which he is recognized to have killed as a type of the Lord's Passion.

But also the synagogue is commanded to offer a lamb from the sheep, and a kid from the goats. By which indeed the Holy Spirit, wishing to take away the occasions of perfidy, declared more openly and expressly that the flesh of Christ was to be assumed from men by these additions of words. Yet, wishing to show that it would be from the race of men, He said 'a lamb from the sheep'; thus, demonstrating that the same was to be received without human seed, He spoke through Isaiah, saying: 'Send forth the Lamb, the ruler of the earth, from the rock of the desert, to the mount of the daughter of Sion' (Isa. XVI, 1). So that, in this that this lamb is commanded to be taken from the sheep, the truth of human nature may be recognized; but in this that the same lamb is commanded to be sent forth from the rock, the suspicion of human intercourse and seed may be driven away.

Thus, then, He says 'a lamb from the sheep,' and 'a kid from the goats,' and 'a calf from the oxen,' as if He said 'a man from men.' Which indeed Moses said more openly in another place: 'The Lord your God will raise up to you a prophet of your brethren, like unto me. Him you shall hear in all things whatsoever He shall speak' (Deut. XVIII, 15). And again: 'A star shall rise out of Jacob, and a man shall spring up out of Israel' (Num. XXIV, 17). And the Apostle: 'It is evident,' he says, 'that our Lord sprang out of Judah' (Heb. VII, 14). And He Himself in the prophet: 'Woe to them, for my flesh is of them!' (Amos IX, 12). VI. The sheaf also of the firstfruits is commanded to be offered and consecrated to the Lord from the harvests (Lev. XXIII, 10).

But who would doubt that this sheaf of the firstfruits is the Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the Law says: 'Every firstborn that openeth the womb shall be called holy to the Lord' (Exod. XIII, 2)? Whence the angel to Mary: 'Therefore,' he says, 'the holy one that shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God' (Luke I, 35). This sheaf, therefore, taken from the harvest of the Jewish nation, was offered to God the Father through the death of the Passion; of whom the Apostle says: 'Christ the firstfruits of them that sleep' (I Cor. XV, 20). And again: 'The beginning, Christ; then they that are Christ's' (Ibid., 23). Of which offered sheaf Joseph also designates the beginning of the resurrection in his vision, saying:

'I saw us binding sheaves in the field, and my sheaf arose, and your sheaves adored my sheaf' (Gen. XXXVII, 7). Which we see most manifestly fulfilled in the Gospel, when the Lord, rising from the dead, is read to have been adored by His disciples (Matt. XXVIII, 9). Just as also at the consummation of the world—which the harvest of that field signifies—He is to be adored and seen by all in the form of a servant, whose sheaf bore the image (Matt. XXIV, 30). There are also many other things fitted in figures and likenesses, which indicate that Christ had the nature of flesh from men.

But lest Photinus and those like him should try to seize from this an occasion for nourishing their perfidy—because by these testimonies only one nature of the flesh of Christ seems to be declared—I judge it consequent and necessary to the faith to repeat also and bring forward those testimonies which teach that both natures, that is, the divine and the human, are in the one Christ. VII. The Apostle therefore says that all the promises of the blessings which are contained in prophecy and the Law pertain to the sacrament of Christ. For thus he says: 'For as many as are the promises of God, in Him they are' (II Cor. I, 20). Let us therefore see how all these blessings of the promises are fitted to Christ in mystical figures;

And there we shall find the sacraments of both natures shining forth more clearly than the light. For the promise of blessing could not be sure and firm unless it contained the mystery of that perfect faith by which Christ was announced as God and man to come. And so the patriarch Isaac, blessing his sons Jacob and Esau, spoke thus to Jacob, saying: 'Behold, the smell of my son is as the smell of a field which the Lord hath blessed. May the Lord give thee of the dew of heaven, and of the fatness of the earth abundance of corn, of wine, and of oil' (Gen. 27). But to Esau: 'In the fatness of the earth, and in the dew of heaven from above, shall thy blessing be' (Ibid.). What could be set forth more openly, or more lucidly, concerning each nature of Christ? For in the dew of heaven, the Word;

but in the fatness of the earth, His flesh is shown to be signified. And that Jacob and Esau bear the figure of the peoples of the Gentiles and of the Jews, no Christian, I think, doubts. Therefore the first people, that of the Gentiles, whose image Jacob prefigured, having obtained the grace of blessing from the dew of heaven and from the fatness of the earth—that is, from Christ, who is God and man—was heaped up with an abundance of corn, and wine, and oil; that is, consecrated by the mystery of the body and blood of Christ, and of His chrism. The manifold grace of this threefold blessing David also commemorates in his sacred song, saying: 'From the time of their corn, their wine, and their oil they are multiplied' (Ps. 4:8).

But Esau, who according to the flesh had been born first, most plainly bearing the type of the Jewish people, while he lingered too long in the field of the Law, persisting in the wandering and fleeting hunts of carnal senses, or complying with the transitory shadows and images of the Law, came as a servant to grace (Gen. 25). He is that elder son of the Gospel who, while he is occupied with the country—that is, with the exercise of the Law—is forestalled by the more eager diligence of the younger, and is defrauded of the flesh of the fatted calf (Luke 15). Wearing himself out, therefore, with empty and vain labour, he hears from his father: 'In vain art thou exercised in all these things, and beyond the appointed time art thou occupied with the doctrines of legal decrees:'

thinking that thou canst obtain the grace of blessing by the Law; whereas both the time of the carnal observance of the Law has run its course, and—because of the impossibility of fulfilling what is commanded by the Law—the transgressors of that same Law obtain not so much a blessing as a curse. For it is written: 'Cursed is everyone who hath not continued in all things that are written in the Law' (Deut. 27:26). Therefore thou oughtest to know that in the fatness of the earth and in the dew of heaven—that is, in Christ—shall thy blessing be. VIII. Jacob also, blessing his son Joseph, did not depart from the mystery of this sacrament, saying: 'He shall bless thee with the blessings of heaven from above, and with the blessings of the earth that hath all things' (Gen. 49:25).

What is the blessing of heaven, but the Word which descended from heaven? And what is the blessing of the earth that hath all things, but the flesh of Christ, which was taken from the earth—that is, from the earthly body of the Virgin—in which the truth of all spiritual graces overflows, and the fruit of every blessing abounds? In which fruit, which without doubt is Christ, the blessing of all the faithful is consummated, as David says: 'The earth hath given her fruit. May God, even our God, bless us; may God bless us' (Ps. 66:7). What is the earth that hath given the fruit of blessing, but Mary, to whom it is said: 'Blessed art thou, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb' (Luke 1:42)? And in Genesis it says: 'Blessings of the breasts and of the womb' (Gen. 49:25)?

And in the Psalms: 'Children are the reward, the fruit of the womb' (Ps. 127:3)? And: 'Of the fruit of thy womb I will set upon thy throne' (Ps. 132)? Of which fruit this same author of sacred song sings in another psalm: 'Truth is sprung out of the earth, and justice hath looked down from heaven. For the Lord will give goodness, and our earth shall yield her fruit' (Ps. 85:12)? In which, clearly proclaiming the confession of both natures, he confounds the mouths of the faithless, while he asserts that truth has sprung from the earth, and that justice has looked down from heaven. For Christ, having His substance from both—from heaven, namely, because begotten of the Father; but from earth, because also born of a mother—has and bears the nature of both parents.

'His going forth is from the highest heaven' (Ps. 19:7). For the highest heaven is the Father: 'And His procession is as a bridegroom's' (Ibid., 6), from the chamber of the virginal womb. This mystery of both natures Isaiah also, disclosing it by the same signs—of heaven, without doubt, and of earth—spoke thus, saying: 'Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the just; let the earth be opened and bud forth a Saviour' (Isa. 45:8). IX. See with what harmonious judgments the truth is fortified by prophetic authority. For what David said: 'Justice hath looked down from heaven,' this Isaiah said: 'Let the clouds rain the just.' And what the former added: 'And our earth shall yield her fruit,' this the latter joined: 'Let the earth be opened, and bud forth a Saviour;'

using a sufficiently clear and open—indeed, the very proper—name of the Son of God; so that no one may dare to doubt that the fruit and bud of the earth, so often named in prophecy, is the nativity of Christ from Mary. Of which bud or fruit the same Isaiah still speaks, saying: 'In that day shall the bud of the Lord be in magnificence and glory, and the fruit of the earth shall be exalted' (Isa. 4:2). Is any place left for doubting, but that it is made clear that by the name of bud and fruit Christ is most plainly signified, who has been so exalted in such great glory and magnificence that 'at His name every knee should bow, of those in heaven, on earth, and in hell, and every tongue confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father'?

Whence the Apostle says: 'For which cause God also hath exalted Him' (Phil. 2:9). And now the prophet: 'And the fruit of the earth shall be exalted,' most manifestly willed it to be understood that what is from the earth—that is, what was taken from Mary—was exalted and raised on high. But what is from the Father was always sublime. X. But neither concerning the dew of heaven, which is set in the figure of the Word of God, is there any occasion for doubt, since Isaiah himself has said: 'And let the clouds rain the just' (Isa. 45:8); and elsewhere, more openly still, he has described the Father as comparing His own Word to the heavenly rain: for thus He speaks in His own person: 'As if the rain or snow comes down from heaven, and returns not thither (but soaks the earth, and makes it bring forth):'

'so shall the Word be which shall go forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me void, but shall do whatsoever I willed, and shall prosper in those things to which I sent it' (Isa. 55:10). Who, in so open and so absolute a clarity of divine preaching, would not behold the light of truth? Behold, the Word of God is said to flow like rain into the earth—that is, into the lap of Mary's bosom; whom, made fruitful by the inebriation of the Holy Spirit, He makes to burst forth in the bud of the Lord's birth, and to bring forth the most precious fruit of her swelling womb. Which Word, because—having become incarnate (that is, clothed with flesh)—it willed to be man, could not return naked and void to the Father by whom it had been sent; but in the same body with which it was clothed it penetrated the heavens.

And therefore the Father says that He cannot return void to Him, because it is unlawful—from the time that He descended into the earth of the Virgin—to confess Him naked and void of man; that is, to assert His Godhead alone apart from the nature of a human body. For it is a matter of equal and of the same peril to confess Him to have only a divine nature, or only a human one, since the one without the other does not avail unto salvation. XI. Which thing the Lord Himself also teaches most plainly in the Gospel under such a comparison of likeness. 'Again,' He says, 'the kingdom of heaven is like unto a treasure hidden in a field, which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field' (Matt. 13:44).

Does it not seem to thee as though the finder of this treasure had acted not prudently enough? For what necessity or impediment was there that he should not at once carry off the treasure he had found from the field?—since assuredly, in that very leisure of time and secrecy in which he had found it, he could have carried it off, and by so easy a saving could have avoided the necessity of buying the field, without loss of his own resources. But the most prudent man certainly recognized that possession of this treasure without the field was ineffectual and useless—indeed, dangerous. For observe that, just as he had found it hidden, so he himself also hid it, nor daring to lay bare the field and empty it of the treasure, he hastened to sell all that he had, that by lawful right he might gain possession both of the treasure and of the field.

Therefore the treasure hidden in the field is God, lying concealed in His flesh. Hear the Apostle saying of Christ: 'In Him,' he says, 'are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge' (Col. 2:3). And therefore every confession is utterly useless and impious which confesses the Lord Jesus Christ to be either God only, and not also man; or man only, and not also God. XII. But that the field figuratively names the flesh of Christ, both the present passage indicates and the testimonies adduced above teach. For of this field especially did Isaac prophesy in his blessings, saying: 'Behold, the smell of my son is as the smell of a field which the Lord hath blessed' (Gen. 27:27).

For the Lord's body is fragrant with the great odours of diverse virtues, and by its sweet fragrance gives life to all the weak. Whence the Apostle: 'We are,' he says, 'the good odour of Christ unto God, from life unto life, in those who are saved' (2 Cor. 2:15). Enticed by the sweetness of which most excellent and saving odour, the Church says to Him in the Song of Songs: 'We will run after Thee into the odour of Thy ointments' (Cant. 1:3). Of the beauty of this field He Himself also speaks in the forty-ninth psalm: 'And the beauty of the field is with Me' (Ps. 50:11). By the glory of which field the Church, in the aforesaid book of Solomon, adjures her companions, saying: 'I adjure you by the glory and the powers of the field' (Cant. 2:7 and 3:5).

Which field that very strong and wise woman in the Proverbs of Solomon—that is, the Church—is brought in as having purchased; for thus it is said of her: 'She considered a field and bought it' (Prov. 31:16). Precious is the possession of this field, which keeps hidden within itself the Godhead of Christ. For Christ is of a twofold nature, and therefore, as I have said, neither can the treasure be possessed by anyone without the field, nor the field without the treasure. For Manichaeus and Eutyches, who wish to possess the treasure without the field—that is, to confess the divinity alone without the flesh—each refusing the confession of both natures in Christ, is held cast far off and excluded, an exile from this possession.

Photinus also and those like him, who willed to possess only the field, and not also its treasure—that is, to confess the humanity of Christ, and not also His divinity—have been deprived of this possession. XIII. Whence deservedly the woman alone in the Proverbs is held worthy of the proclamation of blessedness, who, purchasing this field, is described as having made double cloaks for her husband. For in the cloaks the honour of confession is received, namely of both natures: because her husband would not deign to receive from her one cloak of confession only, either of His divinity alone, or only of His humanity; for that is not of honour, but of the greatest insult, to offer one of these without the other.

Whence, rejecting such gifts as are not twin alike and distinct in the confession of both natures, and divided according to the time and the mystery, He says to Cain: 'If thou offer rightly, but divide not rightly, thou hast sinned' (Gen. 4:7). For he alone divides rightly who is not ignorant in what respect the Son is equal to the Father, and in what respect He is less than the Father; in what respect He suffered and died, and in what respect He remained alike immortal and impassible. For not only to confound, but also not to divide rightly, is the guilt of a crime. For in the one the impiety of Eutyches, in the other that of Nestorius is condemned, while what the former wrongly confounds, the latter most evilly distinguishes.

Concerning the diversity of which doctrines, opposed to one another, we have set forth in the two preceding books as far as we were able by the resources of our slender talent. And since in this third book also we have taught, by the irrefutable (as I think) authority of divine Scripture, that the Son of God, as He has the nature of the same divinity from the Father, so also has the nature of humanity from the mother; and that He was called the dew of heaven, and the bud or fruit of the earth, on account of both natures, we have shown by an assertion no less invincible and perspicuous. Now let us turn the office of our pen to the defence of the letter of Leo and of the Council of Chalcedon:

and let us teach, with the objections of the heretics annulled, that in them the catholic and apostolic meaning shines forth. But for demonstrating these things, other beginnings must be undertaken by us. And therefore let this at last be the end of this work. THE DEFENCE OF THE LETTER OF ST. LEO THE POPE TO FLAVIAN OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 1. Certain men of perverse mind, and desirous of vainglory, knowing neither, as the Apostle says, the things they speak, nor whereof they affirm (1 Tim. 1:7); having the form of piety, but denying the power thereof;

indignant at the doctrines of truth, and not bearing the rules of ecclesiastical faith, thought that the letter of the most blessed Leo, written according to the sense of the apostolic tradition, and the decree of the Synod of Chalcedon, must be opposed with depraved contradictions, vomiting forth wicked fabrications with horrible nauseating words. And since these seem to stir up some scruple of doubt in certain simpler folk, therefore at the exhortation of the holy brethren, with the help of the Lord our God, I have undertaken to consider and to refute them. First dissolving in one volume those things which are objected against the letter of Leo; of which this unknown fellow has set before himself this first chapter:

'The whole body of the faithful professes that they believe in God the Father Almighty, and in Jesus Christ His only Son our Lord' (Leo, Epist. 10, no. 2). At this chapter that fellow cavils on this account, because he did not say, 'in one God the Father, and in one Jesus Christ His Son,' according to the decree of the Council of Nicaea. But at Rome, even before the Synod of Nicaea convened, from the times of the Apostles even to now, and under Celestine of blessed memory—to whom that fellow rendered testimony of right faith—the creed is thus handed down to the faithful; nor are the words prejudged where the sense remains intact. For this profession of faith agrees rather with the saying of the Lord Jesus Christ, who says: 'You believe in God, believe also in Me' (John 14:1).

Nor did He say, 'in one God the Father, and in one Myself': for who would not know that there is one God the Father, and one Jesus Christ His Son? II. Yet I marvel how that fellow noted this passage, and passed over the other, where the same blessed Leo makes mention of the only-begotten Son, saying: 'But the same only-begotten, eternal of the eternal Begetter, was born of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary' (Ep. 10, no. 2). But this too is to be wondered at, why he did not with like madness reprehend what he says: 'Who was born of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary,' since the Synod of Nicaea did not put this phrase; and (as it pleases him) we ought to profess that phrase which we have found written there.