But he impiously slanders Leo, as though he believed in one author and true Son of God, the Word, and in another, separately conceived and conglorified, a man from Mary. For it cannot be proved that Leo so thought or so taught. For rather he confessed one and the same, calling the Lord Christ the Son of God and of man: 'For one and the same is the Son of God and of man' (No. 4). And again: 'One and the same is the mediator of God and of men, the man Christ Jesus' (No. 3). This chapter also thou with marvellous impudence hast thought worthy of reprehension, in which he says: 'The Word, namely, working that which is of the Word, and the flesh executing that which is of the flesh; the one of these flashes with miracles, the other succumbs to injuries' (No. 4).
And first indeed it must be attended to that he did not say, as thou ignorantly cavilest: 'One of these flashes with miracles, and another succumbs to injuries'—by which he would seem, without that ambiguity, to have signified two separate beings whatsoever, or two persons; but he said: 'The one of these, and the other of these,' because by 'the one—that is, this and that'—not a diversity of persons, but a distinction of kind is shown, namely of the Word and of the flesh. III. Likewise Leo said: 'For He who is true God, the same is true man; and there can be no falsehood in this unity, while the lowliness of man and the loftiness of the Godhead are mutually present' (No. 4).
Which thou, with thy wonted malignity, hast twisted into another sense, saying that he introduced two separate beings, mutually performing what is proper to each, whereas he wished to show the loftiness and the lowliness—that is, each nature—as two certain things, not two certain beings, remaining in one Christ. But I marvel how, by this reckoning, thou hast not also accused the Apostle Paul, because he too said that there are two certain things in one man, mutually performing what are proper to each, and striving against one another, namely the spirit and the flesh. 'The flesh,' he says, 'lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh. For these are contrary one to another' (Gal. 5:17).
Therefore, just as there is one man in whom are two certain things mutually remaining in each other, and each performing its own proper functions, nor can he be called another while he savours and acts according to the flesh, and another while he lives according to the spirit; but he himself is the same in both, having both in himself: so too Christ, while He has one thing in Himself in which He succumbs to weaknesses, and another in which He radiates and gleams with virtues—that is, the flesh and the Word—which two the Apostle distinguishing in Him, says: 'For although He was crucified through our weakness, yet He lives through the power of God' (2 Cor. 13:4); not divided in two, and one and another, but most plainly shown to be the same, one and the same. IV.
But thou, while by the profession of a single nature thou triest to take away the human nature from Christ, art nevertheless seen to confess what thou deniest. For thou hast said: 'The very God, who was born in flesh, who is the Word of God the Father; who was made unchangeably perfect man, remaining the only-begotten Son of God; and like to God in power, and like to us in weakness.' If He is like to God in power, and like to us in weakness; and the likeness of the Godhead in power is the property of the divine nature, then without doubt the likeness of humanity in weakness is the property of the human nature. For it is not the part of a prudent man to confess unlike things in a like case. But when thou sayest to Him: 'Who was made unchangeably perfect man, remaining God;'
thou confirmest our faith—nay, the catholic faith—against which thou strivest. For if He was not converted into flesh, and became man remaining God, this very thing, that He became man, since it cannot be called a mutation, must necessarily be called an assumption: and thus that which He was, and was not changed, will be one thing; and that which He was not, and became, or was assumed, another; because that which He was was not changed into flesh, and yet has flesh, as He Himself says: 'My flesh is meat indeed' (John 6:56); and Peter: 'Neither did His flesh see corruption' (Acts 2:31).
Therefore, because to be had and to have is not the very same thing (for the Word indeed has, but the flesh is had), it is clearly and plainly proven that Christ is of both natures, but of one person. V. Whence whatever thou hast wished to pursue more copiously and more at length, in order to show Christ to be one, know that thou hast lingered over superfluous labours, desiring to show what we ourselves by no means deny. In this indeed subtly and impiously mocking the Christian faith, that—because Christ is one, which cannot be denied—thou mightest bend the union of person to the prejudice of both natures, while each nature is always named by one name. For since Jesus Christ is the proper name not of the Word, but of the flesh;
and 'God' is established to be the proper appellation of the Word, not of the flesh; nevertheless both the Word, on account of His flesh, is the man Jesus Christ; and the flesh, on account of the Word, is God the Word. For the name of Christ belongs to Him from this, that the Prophet says to Him: 'God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows' (Ps. 45:8). For the nature of the Word was not anointed, which could not have partakers according to itself. Whence it appears that the appellation of anointing—that is, of Christ—pertains to that whereby He became man. But because now, through the knowledge of both natures, the appellation of His divinity and humanity is one; therefore the Apostle says:
'Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal to God; but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant' (Phil. 2:6). Since assuredly, before the form of a servant was taken by Him, He was not yet Christ, but only the Word; that is, before He was man, He was not yet man, but only God: He was not yet Christ, before He was found a man in the likeness of our condition; and yet Christ is in the form of God, Christ in the form of a servant; Christ equal to the Father, Christ inferior to the Father; the same God, the same man: whence it stands established that both the divinity has the appellation of humanity, and the humanity that of divinity;
that is, that the Word is called flesh, and the flesh is called the Word: not because each was changed in itself, but because each is one person, that is, one Christ. And therefore we rightly believe and preach, with the Apostle, God crucified and dead (1 Cor. 1:23). In the human nature, which from the fellowship of the united Word possesses the name of the Godhead. He therefore, one and the same Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, both died according to the form of a servant, and did not die according to the form of God. The same equal to the Father in the form of God, the same less than the Father in the form of a servant. VI. Since these things are so, whatever thou hast wished to dispute concerning each form according to the perversity of thy understanding, know that it is annulled by this exposition.
By what ignorance indeed, or rather madness, thou hast wished to alter the evangelical discourse, know that it is not unknown to us. For what is there read of Christ, that He was crucified between two thieves, from the testimony of the prophet who says: 'And He was reckoned among the wicked' (Isa. 53:12), thou hast said: 'And He was reckoned among the dead.' Indeed these are thy words: 'The giver of life,' thou sayest, 'and through all things the lover of man, God, who was reckoned among the dead, and was never conquered by corruption and death; nay, He descended into hell as subject to our nature, without sin.' Thou seest how much of sacrilege the confession of only one nature has. Thou seest into what precipices of impiety this novelty of doctrine casts you headlong?
For because you wish God incarnate to be seen in such a way that He has nothing of human nature, but that the whole of what He is should be of the nature of the Godhead: knowing that the nature of God, which is immortal, cannot die, nor does the name of death at all befit it, you have chosen to deviate from the apostolic faith, by saying that God was reckoned among the dead, rather than to confess Him to have died according to man. For the Apostle teaches that the Son of God died according to man, saying to the Romans: 'As by the disobedience of one man many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one man shall many be made just' (Rom. 5:19).
But that this obedience was of death, which He took upon Himself for us in the truth of our nature, the Apostle himself no less teaches, saying of Christ: 'Made obedient unto death, even the death of the cross' (Phil. 2:8). And again: 'We are reconciled to God by the death of His Son' (Rom. 5:10). And to the Corinthians: 'I have delivered,' he says, 'to you what I also received: that Jesus Christ died according to the Scriptures' (1 Cor. 15:3). VII. With what fear, then, thou hast dreaded to say that God died, is not unknown to us. Yet know that thou comest against thine own profession, while thou sayest of Christ, who descended into hell, as subject to our nature without sin.
If, then, He was subject to our nature, He assuredly had our nature; or if He did not have it, show whence He was subject. For no one ought anything to one from whom he has received nothing. But also when thou sayest, in what follows, expounding of Christ the testimony of Jeremiah: 'And He conversed with men' (Bar. 3:38)—according to the human form, from Adam His servant—thou likewise art at variance with thine own professions. For most plainly thou hast declared that, according to the assumption of human nature, God conversed among men. For just as the form of God, in which the Son is equal to the Father, is nothing other than the nature of God; so the form of a servant is nothing other than the human nature, in which He is inferior to the Father.
Attend, therefore, to the force of thine own saying, and believe thyself rather than us. For thou hast said that He had the form of a servant from Adam, although thou wouldst not say that He received it, which the Apostle says: 'He emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant' (Phil. 2:7). But what is it to us, if thou shun the word whose sense thou couldst not avoid? That, therefore, which is His from another, was not His own before He received it. For no one borrows from another what he is recognized to have in himself. Whence it appears that the Word of God was so incarnate that He received from us what is ours, not that He changed His own nature into flesh. And thus in Him there will be a twofold nature, namely of the Word, which was not changed, and of the flesh, which was received from Adam His servant. VIII.
But now let us see of what sort are thy other points by which thou reprehendest the catholic faith. For speaking to Leo and to the whole council, thou insertest their words thus: 'For you said,' thou sayest, 'adding also these things: One and the same is truly the Son of God, and truly the Son of man.' Which judgment thou accusest with such words, and with petulant abuse strivest to weaken: 'Hearken, I beseech you,' thou sayest, 'to the deceit of the venomed tongue, how, introducing two sons, you set before them "one and the same," that you might overshadow the impious distance with the bare words of truth. For it had sufficed to say: One and the same is the Son, who was unchangeably made man.' This they said. But thou either dost not understand, or, what is more true, impiously slanderest.
For what thou saidst, 'He became man,' this they said, 'the same is the Son of man': but if the name of Son of man displeases thee, blot out the Gospel, contend that the Son Himself pronounced ill concerning Himself. For He Himself surely gave this rule of faith, He Himself imposed both names upon Himself. For to the blind man illuminated by Himself He thus says: 'Dost thou believe in the Son of God?' (John 9:35). But that this Son of God is Himself also the Son of man, He says elsewhere: 'When the Son of man shall come, thinkest thou He shall find faith on earth?' (Luke 18:8) and very many other things. Is then Christ Himself also to be believed to have divided Himself, who deigned to confess Himself both Son of God and Son of man? IX.
Likewise thou slanderest Leo, as though he said that a certain man was born of Mary, in whom the Word dwelt, from that testimony of his in which he says: 'For each nature co-operates, with the communion of the other, in that which is proper to it' (No. 4). That he ever said 'a certain man,' thou shalt not demonstrate. But that the Word dwelt in His own flesh—that is, in the man which He Himself became—hear John, saying: 'And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us' (John 1:14), that is, in the flesh of our nature. For he could have said 'He dwelt with us,' if he had wished to show His presence to men, and not His habitation in His own proper flesh, which is from us.
But because, having been made a man of our nature, he inhabited a body of our nature, he is said to have dwelt among us. And from this the Apostle leads us to the truth that we are now in heaven and seated at the right hand of the Father — in him who assumed a true body of our nature. For he says: 'Who has raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places, in Christ' (Eph. 2:6). Whence, then, do we sit there, if we do not have our nature there in Christ? And that Christ does not dwell as one in another, while he dwells in that which is properly his own, that is, in his own flesh, hear the Apostle saying of him: 'In whom,' he says, 'dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily' (Col. 2:9). And again:
'God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself' (2 Cor. 5:19). And again: 'Abolishing the enmities in his flesh' (Eph. 2:14). Concerning the proper operation of each nature I have already disputed above, which you too are convinced you profess with equal assent; for you say: 'We confess the Son of Man to be of the seed of Abraham and of David, and an infant, and a boy, and a man of Bethlehem, and from Nazareth, and whatever else belongs to his voluntary poverty.' For what is his poverty but the weakness of our nature? Since what the Apostle says — 'Though he was rich, he became poor' (2 Cor. 8:9) — what else is it but that, though he was God, he became man?
And thereby, with the property of each nature preserved, one and the same is Christ. This you yourself confess, saying: 'We confess and believe the divine operations and the sufferings of the flesh.' For while you ascribed the sufferings specifically to the flesh, you most plainly demonstrated the property of the human nature. X. Let us look also at the other things you reprehend. 'Why,' you say to Leo, 'do you divide the one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, according to this and that, into God and man — calling him God in respect of the fact that all things were made through him, but man in respect of the fact that he was made of a woman?' If it is not permitted to say of Christ 'according to this and that,' that is, either according to his divinity or according to his flesh, how does the Apostle say of him:
'Who was made of the seed of David according to the flesh' (Rom. 1:3)? But you, how is it that you say in what follows: 'Christ is divided in nothing, neither according to the incarnation, nor according to the coeternal nature, nor according to the voluntary sufferings, nor according to the ineffable glory'? If 'according to this and that' sounds to you like division, behold, you yourself have divided Christ into four portions — whom nevertheless, just as he is, you said to be undivided. Therefore what you yourself dared to presume in like manner, you ought not to reprehend in another. For it is folly to wish to refute what you are equally convinced you do not deny. XI. And how you have wished to reprehend this also I do not understand, which that same blessed Leo asserted, saying:
'The nativity of the flesh is the manifestation of human nature; the Virgin's childbearing is the token of divine power. The infancy of the little child is shown by the lowliness of the swaddling-bands; the greatness of the Most High is declared by the voices of angels. He whom Herod impiously plots to slay is like the beginnings of men, yet he whom the Magi rejoice to adore in supplication is the Lord of all' (no. 4). For you assert, according to the depravity of your own understanding, that by these words Leo wished to show two Christs — whereas he asserted that the very one whom he called an infant, wrapped in the lowliness of swaddling-bands for the manifestation of human nature, this same one was, nonetheless, declared by the voices of angels as the token of the divine nature. For if he had said:
'One lay in swaddling-clothes, another was proclaimed by angels; one Herod sought to slay, another the Magi longed to adore in supplication' — he would more rightly be charged with having held a wrong opinion. But since he says that the same one whom thousands of angels proclaim was wrapped in swaddling-bands, the same one whom the care of the Magi, skilled in the stars, sought out, was assailed by Herod's plots — why do you try to twist back into the vice of division things that were said of the one Christ for the demonstration of each nature? Why do you reprehend those things which you yourself are convinced you confess? For thus blameworthily do you address Leo: 'Why,' you say, 'do you not confess the true God born an infant for our sake, and remaining likewise God, and that he took up the wrappings of the flesh of our nature for our sake?'
For thus he was made like to us in all things, without sin. Behold, what you everywhere argue against, what you everywhere reproach, what you deem impious and sacrilegious — overwhelmed by the weight of truth, you are compelled to profess it. For if he took up the wrappings of our nature, he surely had the truth of our nature. For he could not be nourished by the wrappings of swaddling-bands and by the nourishment of his mother's touch in God, except by that which in him was proper to our nature; nor could he be made like to us in anything, unless that which we ourselves are he deigned to receive in himself. XII. But still you confess unwillingly the things that are ours — nay, the things that belong to the truth — saying:
'Our nature, thus honored, glories, beholding him who is of one substance with the Father according to his divinity, and of one substance with us according to the unutterable incarnation from the Virgin, sitting at the right hand of his Father's majesty. For while his divine flesh sits above all glory, splendor, riches, and ineffable light, the weakness of our nature, refulgent, glories.' You have confessed, by the divine attributes of his divinity, that the weakness of our nature has been glorified; and you assert this to be the cause of its glorification — that this same nature, through union with the Word, glories to sit at the right hand of God. If these things be understood plainly, they are rightly and catholicly said.
I. You said also that, just as the Son is of one substance with the Father according to his divinity, so he is of one substance with us according to the incarnation. By which profession — to deal plainly with you — you confess that there is a twofold nature in Christ. For if according to divinity he is of one substance with the Father, and again is of one nature with us according to the incarnation, he is surely of a twofold nature. But if I press you more strictly, and sift more closely what you hold, you will perceive how great absurdities follow you. XIII. You said that Christ has unity of substance with us just as with the Father, yet you wish him to have one nature: therefore the nature of God and our nature will be one. And what could be more impious than this profession?
Furthermore, both by the authority of our Fathers and by the common judgment of all the wise, to have the communion of the same substance belongs not to one, but to two. And thus you bring in for us two certain Christs — one who is of one substance with the Father according to divinity, another who has unity of nature with us according to the flesh: since, as I said, our substance and the Father's is not one, yet you will not have a twofold nature in Christ; it will therefore be necessary, according to you, that there be one Christ who has unity of substance with the Father, and another who has it with us. For if one and the same does not have both, since they are two, yet you have said that he has both:
it is necessary that there be two here, who possess each one severally — and by this you rather introduce a quaternity into the Church, you who will not confess each nature in the one Christ. Let me yet repeat it more fully, if I am able. The Fathers in the Council of Nicaea, professing the Father and the Son to be of one substance, most religiously handed down that two persons are to be understood in the unity of nature. Therefore you, when you say that the Word and the flesh are of one substance, bring in for us two persons of Christ and two Christs.
For according to the authority of our Fathers — by whom it was decreed that unity of substance is to be received or spoken of only between two persons — reason demands this: that if, according to your impious opinion, the Word and the flesh are of one substance, there are surely two persons, of the Word and of the flesh, having the communion of one nature. XIV. Furthermore, it will be necessary that the flesh too, just like the Word — if it is of one nature with him — be uncreated and invisible and intangible and without beginning; for otherwise it cannot have unity of nature with the Word. But since there is no doubt that the flesh is subject to these conditions, and yet (as you say) is of one nature with the Word:
the Word therefore will be, according to the Arians, creatable, and touchable, and visible, and subsisting from a beginning — because otherwise it cannot have unity of nature with the flesh. Then, if the nature of the Word and of the flesh is one, how is it that, since the Word is everywhere, the flesh too is not found everywhere? For when he was on earth, he was certainly not in heaven. And now, because he is in heaven, he is certainly not on earth — and so far is he not on earth, that according to that very flesh we look for Christ to come from heaven, whom according to the Word we believe to be with us on earth. Therefore, according to you, either the Word is contained in a place together with its flesh, or the flesh is everywhere together with the Word, since one nature does not admit in itself anything contrary and diverse.
But to be circumscribed by place and to be everywhere are diverse and far unlike: and because the Word is everywhere, but his flesh is not everywhere, it is apparent that one and the same Christ is of each nature — being everywhere according to the nature of his divinity, and contained in a place according to the nature of his humanity; created, and not having a beginning; succumbing to death, and unable to die. Of which the one belongs to him from the nature of the Word, whereby he is God; the other from the nature of the flesh, whereby the same God is man. Therefore the one Son of God, the same having become Son of man, has a beginning from the nature of his flesh, and has no beginning from the nature of his divinity:
he is created through the nature of his flesh, and is not created through the nature of his divinity; he is circumscribed by place through the nature of his flesh, and is not contained by place through the nature of his divinity; he is even lower than the angels through the nature of his flesh, and is equal to the Father according to the nature of his divinity; he died by the nature of his flesh, and did not die by the nature of his divinity. XV. This is the catholic faith and confession which the apostles handed down, the martyrs strengthened, and the faithful even now keep. Whence, most impiously and infected with the poison of the Eutychian heresy, you dare to reprehend Leo, while from the diversity of the deeds of the one Lord Christ he teaches the truth of each of his natures:
so that what he brought forth for the demonstration of both natures, you calumniate as being a profession of two persons. Finally, these are his words: 'The nativity of the flesh is the manifestation of human nature; the Virgin's childbearing is the token of divine power' (no. 4). And again: 'For each nature acts, in communion with the other, what is proper to it: the Word, namely, working what is the Word's, and the flesh carrying out what is the flesh's' (no. 4). And again: 'Although in the Lord Jesus Christ there is one person of God and of man, yet that whence the common injury proceeds is one thing, and that whence the common glory is, is another' (no. 4). Which words you reprehend with iniquitous interpretations in this manner:
'Who would dare,' you say, 'with two articles and significations set forth, in two certain names — one applied to God, and another to man — to say that they can come together into one person? For in one person, one thing and another, and "in common," is never said.' Whence you have manifestly recorded one as God the Word, another as the man who suffered injury, saying: 'That whence the common injury is, is one thing; that whence the common glory is, is another.' For no one receives in one man the communion of suffering flesh, since the flesh is, according to nature, a man. How is he to be believed to have said or meant that the Word was glorified as one, and a man suffered injury as another — he who in what follows says:
'Him, as man, the devil's cunning tempts; the same one, as God, angelic ministries serve' (no. 4)? Did he say: 'One the devil's cunning tempts, and another, as God, angelic ministries serve'? And again: 'The impassible God did not disdain to be a passible man.' And again: 'For he who is true God, the same is true man' (no. 4). Did he say: 'One is the impassible God, and another is the passible man'; or 'one is the true God, and another is the true man'? But 'he who is true God, the same,' he says, 'is true man.'
Since these things are so, you employ a dishonorable office: you craftily lay snares against words religiously spoken, so that, by removing what precedes and not adding what follows, you so select the middle parts that — stripping the words of their sentences — you may sport at your pleasure with their nakedness. Restore therefore all things to their places, and restore to the sentences their proper garments; and do not weave calumnies with insidious frauds, so as to refer to a duality of persons what was said for the demonstration of both natures. XVI. But because he said that in the one Christ one thing is proper to the Word, another to the flesh, yet in such a way that each is common — that is, that even death, which is proper to the flesh, pertains to the Word, and life, which is proper to the Word, pertains to the flesh —