Letter to Jovian (complete)

We confess that the Son of God, eternally begotten before the ages, was at the end of the ages born from Mary according to the flesh for our salvation, as the divine apostle teaches, saying, “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman”; and that the same is Son of God and God according to the Spirit, and Son of Man according to the flesh: not two natures, the one Son, one to be worshiped and one not to be worshiped, but one nature of God the Word made flesh and worshiped together with his flesh in one worship; not two sons, one the true Son of God and worshiped, and another the man from Mary, not worshiped, who became a son of God by grace, as human beings also do; but the one from God, as I said, one Son of God, the same and not another, was also born from Mary according to the flesh in the last days. So the angel, when Mary the Mother of God said, “How will this be, since I do not know a man?”, said, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the holy one who is born will be called Son of God.”

He, then, who was born from the Virgin Mary is Son of God by nature and true God, not by grace and participation; he is man only according to the flesh from Mary, but according to the Spirit the same is Son of God and God. He suffered our sufferings according to the flesh, as it is written, “Christ having suffered for us in the flesh,” and again, “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all”; but he remained free from suffering and unchangeable according to the Godhead, according to the word of the prophet, “I am God, and I have not changed.” He died our death according to the flesh for our sins, so that he might destroy death through his death for us, according to the apostle who says, “Death is swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O Hades, is your sting?” and again, “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures.” But he remained immortal and not held fast by death because of the Godhead, as the Father's power, which cannot suffer, according to Peter, who says, “For it was not possible,” he says, “for him to be held by death.” He went up into heaven and sits at the right hand of the Father according to the Word's flesh raised up from earth, according to what was said by David, “The Lord said to my Lord, ‘Sit at my right hand,’” and confirmed by the Lord himself and by the apostles; but according to the Godhead he is uncontained, encompassing every place with the Father from eternity, as the Father's ineffable power, according to Paul, who teaches, “Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” The same Son of God and God is coming, as he promised, to judge the living and the dead, as the apostle says, “who judges the hidden things of darkness and discloses the hidden things of the hearts, and brings praise and blame to each as each deserves.”

If anyone teaches from the divine Scriptures contrary to these things, saying that the Son of God is one and the man from Mary another, made a son by grace as we are, so that there are two sons, one Son of God by nature, the one from God, and one by grace, the man from Mary; or if anyone says that our Lord's flesh is from above and not from the Virgin Mary, or that the Godhead was turned into flesh, or confused, or altered, or that the Son's Godhead can suffer, or that our Lord's flesh is not to be worshiped, as being a man's, and is not to be worshiped as the flesh of the Lord and God: the catholic church anathematizes him, obeying the apostle who says, “If anyone preaches to you a gospel contrary to what you received, let him be accursed.”