And blessed Ambrose too, agreeing with this opinion, says thus (Book II On the Faith, to Gratian, chapter 4, at the beginning): 'A partaker of both natures, that is, the human and the divine, in the nature of man He underwent suffering; so that indiscriminately both He who suffered may be said to be the Lord of majesty, and the Son of man, as it is written, who came down from heaven.' He described all too clearly both the communion of the work and the property of each nature: since the divine oracles testify both that the flesh came down from heaven on account of the Word, and that the Word underwent death on account of the flesh; although neither did the flesh come down from heaven, nor could the Word die. XXIII. Likewise Leo said (no. 4): 'To hunger, to thirst, to grow weary, and to sleep, is evidently human:'
'and it does not belong to the same nature to weep with the affection of pity over a dead friend, and to raise the same man back to life at the command of His voice.' Blessed Gregory Nazianzen the bishop also asserted this, saying (Oration 38 on the Nativity of Christ, after the middle): 'When therefore God came forth from the Virgin, in the human nature which He had assumed, being one out of two things contrary to one another, flesh and spirit, the one is assumed into God, the other bestows the grace of the Godhead. He was sent indeed, but as a man; for the nature in Him was twofold. Hence, finally, He also grew weary from the journey, hence He hungered, and thirsted, and was sorrowful, and wept, by the law of a human body.' Again Leo said (no. 3):
'An inviolable nature was united to a passible nature, so that, as befitted our remedies, one and the same Mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus, might both be able to die from the one, and not be able to die from the other': and it does not belong to the nature of the Word that He could be fastened with nails. To this also blessed Cyril, in the letter of the whole synod to Nestorius (it is the fourth among Cyril's letters, and is found in the Council of Ephesus, act 1, and in the Council of Chalcedon, act 1): 'In the very womb and the virginal belly,' he says, 'the Word joined Himself with flesh, and underwent a carnal generation, making the nativity of His flesh His own.'
'Thus we say that He both suffered and rose again, not because God the Word suffered in His own nature, either blows, or piercings of nails, or other similar wounds (for God, being incorporeal, is outside of sufferings); but because that body which became His own suffered, therefore He Himself is said to have suffered all these things for us. For there was present in that body which suffered the God who could not suffer. In a like manner we also understand His death; for the life-giving Word of God is by nature immortal and incorruptible; but because His own body, by the grace of God according to the word of Paul, tasted death for all (Hebrews'
ii, 9), therefore He Himself is said to have suffered death for us, not that He Himself had experienced death, as far as pertains to His own nature (for it is madness to think or say this), but because, as we said above, His flesh tasted death. So also, when the flesh rose again, we call it His resurrection; not because He had fallen into corruption (far be it), but because His body rose again. Thus we worship Christ as man (whom nevertheless we confess also to be God), not as a man co-adored together with the Word, lest some appearance of division be introduced, but adoring Him as already one and the same. This too blessed Hilary explains in few words. 'Do you see,' he says (Book'
ix on the Trinity, not far from the beginning), 'that God and man are so proclaimed, that death is reckoned to the man, but to God the rousing of the flesh? Understand the nature of God in the power of the resurrection, recognize the dispensation of the man in death: and although both are the deeds of both natures, yet remember that He is one Jesus who is both.' XXIV. And since it has, I think, become quite clear that the letter of blessed Leo agrees with the synodal letters of Cyril, let us briefly indicate what the other teachers of the Church also felt concerning both natures of Christ. Saint John (Chrysostom, vol. V Greek-Latin, sermon 35), in the homily on the Ascension of the Lord, says thus:
'God was justly angry with us, and we despised Him in His anger, and we shunned our merciful Lord: and Christ thrust Himself into the midst, and united both natures, and Himself bore the punishment that hung over us.' Likewise: 'Let us recognize, then, what nature it is to which He said: Sit at My right hand, and be a partaker of My throne: that nature, namely, which had heard: You are earth, and into the earth you shall go.' Augustine too, holding this view, says (Tractate 78 on John): 'It had to be a matter of rejoicing for human nature, in that it was so assumed by God the Word that it was established immortal in heaven; and so it became earth made sublime, that it might sit incorruptible at the right hand of the Father.' Likewise blessed Basil, bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia:
'Since, then, we behold certain things in Christ so human that they seem to differ in nothing from the frailty of mortals; and certain things so divine that they befit no other than that ineffable nature of the deity; the narrowness of human understanding is at a loss, and, struck with stupor at so great a wonder, it knows not whither to turn, what to hold, to what to convert itself: whether it should think Him a man or a God, whom it beholds returning from the dead with spoils, the kingdom of death having been vanquished. On which account He must be contemplated with all fear and reverence, so that in one and the same the truth of both natures may be so demonstrated that neither anything unworthy and unseemly may be felt in that divine and ineffable substance; nor again may the things that were done be esteemed as deluded by false images.'
Whence is there a way out of this? Whither again is there escape? By what devices, by what tricks of arguments can the truth of so great an authority be overshadowed? Thus all the ecclesiastical teachers agree in the property of both natures, so that in one and the same Christ nothing unworthy, nothing false may be esteemed. Nothing unworthy, lest we believe the Son of God, God the Lord Christ, according to the nature of His divinity, to have been subject to death: nothing false, but that we believe the same, according to the nature of His flesh, to have died. So that, because He truly died, it belongs to the dignity of the nature of the Word to give the honor of immortality; and to the nature of the flesh, to ascribe the truth of death: in such a way that both belong to one and the same Christ, that is, both to die and not to die:
to die according to the nature of His flesh, and not to die according to the nature of His divinity. XXV. But now let us look at the last chapter of the decree from the decree of the Council of Chalcedon (act 5): 'One and the same Christ the Lord, the Only-begotten, is to be acknowledged in two natures, unconfusedly, unchangeably, undividedly, inseparably; the diversity of the two natures being in no way evacuated on account of the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved, as concurring into one person and substance: not as divided or separated into two persons, but one and the same Only-begotten Son, God the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ.'
In this chapter what displeases them is that they said, the property of each nature being preserved, or the difference of the natures not being evacuated; and in order to teach thoroughly that these are weak, using their accustomed prolixity of words and empty assertion, they insert many testimonies from Cyril's chapters, in which he does not deny two natures in Christ, but teaches that there is one person. Therefore, lest we refute them by our own disputation, let us too set down Cyril's words, so that, since they rely on Cyril as witness, by Cyril as witness they may be vanquished. From Cyril's synodal letters to Nestorius: 'For we do not say,' he says (Epistle
4), 'that the nature of God, converted or changed, became flesh, nor that it was transformed into a whole man (which is soul and body); but rather this, that the Word coupled to Himself a flesh animated by a rational soul, and was substantially, ineffably, and incomprehensibly made man, and was also called the son of man: not by the will alone, nor by the assumption of a person only, but because natures in a certain way diverse came together into one. Yet there is one Christ and Son out of both, the diversity of the natures not being evacuated or taken away through the conjunction.'
'But because together they made for us one Lord and Christ and Son, that is, divinity and humanity, through that secret and ineffable coupling unto unity.' What could be set forth more manifestly, what more clearly, in accord with the synodal decree of Chalcedon, from the letters of Cyril? Behold, neither do sayings contradict sayings, nor opinions contradict opinions; but as with one sense of faith, so with almost the same words have they spoken. The holy synod said: 'The diversity of the two natures being in no way evacuated.' Blessed Cyril said: 'The diversity of the natures not being evacuated or taken away through the conjunction.' The holy synod said: 'Both natures concurring into one person.' Blessed Cyril said:
'Not by the will alone, nor by the assumption of a person only: but because natures in a certain way diverse came together into one.' The holy synod said: 'Not divided into two persons, but one and the same Christ.' Blessed Cyril said: 'Yet one out of both, that is, out of the natures, Christ the Son.' And again: 'But because together they made for us one Lord, Christ, and Son, divinity and humanity.' XXVI.
And since, as I think, by the perspicuous and most clear light of truth the darkness of earthly falsehood has been put to flight, and the ruinous edifice of perverse dogma — which against the letter of Leo and the Council of Chalcedon was being raised with confessed efforts of perfidy — having been shaken by the powerful onset of catholic witnesses, has irreparably fallen, let us give to God glory and honor, by whose gift or bounty the victory is granted and falsehood is overcome. If indeed in these little works of defense anything has been said by us less, or otherwise than was fitting, we ask pardon. For either the abundance of words failed us, so that we could not express what we felt; or we were not able, through the slenderness of our talent and the weakness of our mind, to feel what ought to have been felt.
But if we displease by the work, let us at least please by our zeal. Let the having willed be accepted; if it displeases, let the not having been able be ours.