On the Incarnation of the Lord, against Nestorius 5.10–6.5

For this is what John, so dear to God, foreseeing it by the Lord’s revelation to him, said about the very one who spoke in him: “Every spirit that confesses that Jesus has come in the flesh is from God; and everyone who dissolves Jesus is not from God; and this is the spirit of antichrist, of which you have heard that it comes, and now it is already in the world.” O the wonderful and singular goodness of God, who, like a most careful and most provident physician, foretold the diseases that would one day come into his church, and in foretelling the sickness gave the medicine by the very foretelling, so that all, recognizing the coming illness, might begin far off to avoid what they had learned was threatening. And therefore Saint John says: “Everyone who dissolves Jesus is not from God, and this is of antichrist.” Do you recognize, heretic, do you now recognize that he said these things of you openly and pointedly? For no one so dissolves Jesus as one who does not confess him to be God. For since the whole faith and the whole worship of the church consists in this, to confess Jesus as true God, who could dissolve his veneration and worship more than one who has denied all in him that we all worship? Beware, then, I beg you, beware lest anyone may even call you antichrist. Do you think I am abusing or cursing you? What I say is not mine. See, the evangelist says: “Everyone who dissolves Jesus is not from God, and this is of antichrist.” If you do not dissolve Jesus and do not deny God, no one can call you antichrist; but if you deny, why do you complain that anyone says you are antichrist? You yourself, you, I say, by denying, have said this of yourself. Do you want to know that this is true? Tell me, when Jesus was born of the virgin, what do you hold him to have been, man or God? If God only, you surely dissolve Jesus, since you deny that there was in him man united to God. If man, you dissolve him no less, since you blaspheme, as you do, that he was born only a man. Unless perhaps you think that you do not dissolve Jesus when you deny that he was God, you who would dissolve him even if you did not deny that a man was born with God. But perhaps you would like this made plainer by examples. Take one of each. The Manichaean is outside the church because he asserts that Jesus was God only; Ebion, because he asserts he was man only. For both denied and dissolved Jesus, the one by saying he was man alone, the other by saying he was only God; because, though they said different things, the impiety of the difference itself is equal. Except that, if there can be any distinction between the magnitude of evils, your blasphemy, which asserts that he was man alone, is more injurious than that which asserts he was God alone; because, though both are evil, it is more insulting to have robbed the Lord of what is divine than of what is human. This, then, alone is the catholic faith, this alone the true: to believe the Lord Jesus Christ to be man as he is God, and God as he is man. For “everyone who dissolves Jesus is not from God.” And to dissolve is this: to wish to break what is united in Jesus and to separate what is undivided. And what in Jesus is united and undivided? Man, of course, and God. Therefore he dissolves Jesus who has separated and broken these apart.

And therefore to every man who bursts out into this blasphemy and madness the Lord Jesus himself, in the gospel, cries out and protests for himself what he said to the Pharisees: “What God has joined, let man not separate.” Although there, where it was said by God, it seems to have been an answer on another matter, yet the depth of God, which was speaking no more of fleshly than of spiritual things, though it spoke of that, wished it to be understood rather of this. For since the Jews then believed what you say, that Jesus was only a man without God, when the Lord was asked about the partnership of marriage he taught not only about that but also about this, and, consulted about lesser matters, answered also about higher and greater ones, saying: “What God has joined, let man not separate.” That is: do not separate what God has joined in me; let human impiety not separate what the divine majesty has united in me. Do you want to know more fully that this is so? Hear the apostle discussing these very things of which the Savior taught then; who, as a teacher sent by God, set out, as far as the weakness of his hearers could then grasp, those very things which God had preached in a mystery. For when he was discussing fleshly marriage, about which the Savior had been asked in the gospel, he repeated those very testimonies of the old law which he had then used, so that it might be understood that one who used the same testimonies was expounding the same thing. Adding, moreover, lest anything seem lacking to the case, fleshly marriage too and the names of woman and man, whom he was urging to mutual affection, he put it thus: “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ also loved the church”; and again: “So husbands also ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body.” You see how, joining the names of Christ and the church to the names of husband and wife, he drew all from a fleshly hearing to a spiritual understanding. For when he had said all this, he added the testimonies which the Lord had used in the gospel, saying: “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will be in one flesh.” And what did he add after this, as with a great cry of protest? “This sacrament,” he says, “is great.” He removed and cut off from it entirely the fleshly understanding when he said that it is a wholly divine sacrament. And what did he add after these words? “But I speak,” he says, “in Christ and in the church.” When he had said “This sacrament is great,” he did not say, This is the explanation of the sacrament; but what? “But I speak in Christ and in the church”; that is to say: that indeed is a great sacrament, but I speak in Christ and in the church; that is, since perhaps not all can grasp that for the present, let them at least grasp this, which does not disagree with it or differ from it, because both are about Christ. But since they do not grasp those deeper things, let them at least know these easier ones, so that, when they have begun to grasp a readier understanding, they may be able to come to a higher one, and the attaining of the plainer thing now may afterwards be the way to the deeper.

What, then, is that great sacrament which is signified under the name of husband and wife? Let us ask the apostle himself, who, to teach the same thing elsewhere, used the words of the thing itself, saying: “And manifestly great is the sacrament of godliness, which was manifested in the flesh, justified in the spirit, appeared to angels, was preached to the Gentiles, was believed in the world, was taken up in glory.” What, then, is that great sacrament which was manifested in the flesh? God, of course, born in the flesh, God seen in the body, who, as he was openly manifested in the flesh, so was openly taken up in glory. This, then, is the great sacrament of which he says: “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and the two will be in one flesh.” Who were the two in one flesh? God, of course, and the soul. For in the one flesh of the man which is united to God there are God and the soul, according to the word of the Lord himself: “No one can take my soul from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again.” So you see three things in this: God, flesh and soul. It is God who speaks, the flesh in which he speaks, the soul of which he speaks. For this reason, then, that man of whom the prophet says, “A brother does not redeem; a man will redeem,” who, as was said, ascended where he was before, and of whom we read, “No one has ascended into heaven except the one who came down from heaven, the Son of Man who is in heaven,” for this reason, I say, left his father and mother, that is, God of whom he was born and that Jerusalem which is the mother of us all, and cleaved to human flesh as to his wife. And therefore of the father he expressly said “a man will leave his father,” but of the mother he did not say “his,” but only put “mother,” because she was not so much his mother as the mother of all believers, that is, of all of us. And he was joined to his wife, because, as husband and wife are one body, so the majesty of the Godhead and the flesh of man are united; and the two, that is, God and the soul, became one flesh, because, as that flesh had God dwelling in it, so it had also the soul dwelling together with God. This, then, is that great sacrament to which the apostle’s wonder calls us and the exhortation of the Godhead invites us to inquire; not foreign either to Christ and the church, as he himself says, “But I speak in Christ and in the church”; because the flesh of the church is the flesh of Christ, and in the flesh of Christ are God and the soul; and so the same thing is in Christ as in the church, because the sacrament that is believed in the flesh of Christ is held by faith also in the church.

This sacrament, then, which was both manifested in the flesh and appeared in the world and is preached to the Gentiles, many of the ancient saints, as they foresaw it in the spirit, also wished to see in the flesh. For “Amen,” says the Lord, “I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.” And therefore the prophet Isaiah says: “O that you would rend the heavens, Lord, and come down!” And David too: “Lord, bow your heavens and come down.” Moses also says: “Show me yourself, that I may see you plainly.” No one at all came nearer than Moses, as he received the law, to God speaking from the clouds, and to the very presence of the majesty; and how, when no one saw nearer things of God than he, did he still ask for plainer things, saying, “Show me yourself, that I may see you plainly”? Because, of course, he was praying for what the apostle said had been done in almost the same words: that the Lord should be manifested openly in the flesh, should appear openly in the world, should be taken up openly in glory, so that the saints might at last see with fleshly eyes all that they foresaw with spiritual ones.

Otherwise, if, as the heretic says, God was to be in the Lord Jesus Christ as in a statue and an instrument, that is, to dwell only as in a man and to speak as through a man, not so that he himself was the one dwelling and God was speaking from himself and his own body, then he had surely already dwelt in the saints in this way and spoken from the saints; in those very ones I mentioned above, who prayed for his coming, he was and spoke in this way. And what need was there for all to ask for what they had, if they were asking for what they had already received? Or why should they desire to see with their eyes what they held in their heart, especially since it is more to have something within oneself than to see it outside oneself? Or if God was to dwell in Christ as in all the saints, why should all the saints desire to see Christ rather than themselves? And if they were to see in the Lord Jesus the same thing they had in themselves, why would they not think it much more to have the same thing in themselves than to see it in another? But you err, unhappy madness, understanding, as the apostle says, neither what you say nor about what you make assertions. For all the prophets and saints received from God a certain portion of the divine Spirit, as far as they could receive it; but in Christ all the fullness of the Godhead dwelt and dwells bodily. And therefore all are far from the fullness of him from whose fullness they receive something; whose filling is Christ’s gift, because all would surely be empty unless he were the fullness of all.

This, then, all the saints wished for, this they prayed for, this they desired to see with their eyes as they knew it with soul and mind. And therefore the prophet Isaiah says: “O that you would rend the heavens and come down!” And Habakkuk too, announcing the same as the other wished for: “When the years draw near,” he says, “you will be shown; at the coming of the times you will be made known. God will come from Teman” (or, “God from the south”). David too: “God will come openly”; and again: “You who sit upon the cherubim, appear.” Some announced the coming which he granted to the world, others asked for it; some in a different form, but all with a like longing, understanding to some extent how great a thing they were praying for: that God, dwelling in God, remaining in the form and bosom of God, should empty himself, taking the form of a servant, and submit himself to undergo all the bitterness of sufferings and insults, suffer punishment for his benefits, and, what is most unbearable and most unworthy, receive death from the very ones for whom he himself would die. So all the saints, understanding this to some extent, to some extent, I say, understanding, because no one understands how great it is, asked with one voice and as it were in harmony together for the coming of God, knowing surely that in this lay the hope of all, in this the salvation of all was contained, because no one could free those in bonds unless he was free of bonds, no one could deliver sinners unless he was without sin. For no one can free anyone from something unless he is himself free of that from which another is freed by him. And therefore, since death had passed upon all, all needed life, so that, dying in Adam, they might live in Christ; because, though many were holy, many chosen and very close to God, none of them could be saved at all by themselves unless they had been saved by the Lord’s coming and redemption.

We read in the gospel that when five loaves had been set out at the Lord’s command a countless multitude of God’s people was filled; and yet how this was done neither speech can tell, nor estimation reckon, nor understanding conceive. So great and so incomprehensible is the force of divine power that, though we are aware of the deed itself, it is impossible for us to know the manner of the deed. For first, who could grasp how so small a number of loaves sufficed, I do not say for eating and filling, but even for the very dividing and serving, when there were many more thousands of people than loaves, almost more meals than there could be fragments from so many loaves? Abundance of things, then, was born from the word of the Lord; the work grew in the doing; and though what was seen was little, what was given became beyond estimating. Here, then, there is no room for conjecture, none for human estimation or reasoning. The only thing the minds of the faithful and wise may know in such a matter is that, however great and inestimable are the things done by God, even if they do not grasp them by understanding, they recognize that nothing is impossible for God. But of these so ineffable acts of divine power, which fit most rightly with the ineffable miracles of the holy birth, more fully later, as the matter requires.

Meanwhile, since we have mentioned the five loaves, we compare them, not unfittingly I think, with the five books we have already unrolled; for as they are equal in number, so they are not unlike in kind. For since those were of barley, these too, as far as our talent is concerned, may be called barley; though, enriched with holy testimonies, they cover saving wealth in contemptible wrappings, in this too not differing from those: for as those, being poor in appearance, became rich by blessing, so these also, though cheap in our talent, are precious by the holy admixture; and though they show outwardly the cheapness of barley from our speech, they have within the savor of the living bread from the Lord’s testimonies. It remains that, after the example of those, by the grace of the divine gift they should offer saving food from themselves to countless thousands, and, as those gave bodily strength to those who ate, so these should give spiritual health to those who read. And the Lord, whose gift this is as that was, is able to make those who are to be filled with this food not stray from the way, as by that food he made those who were filled not faint on the way. But since there, where a countless people of God was fed with little food indeed but a great gift, two fish are read to have been added to the five loaves, it is fitting that we too, who wish the food of a spiritual meal to be offered through us to all the peoples who follow God, should add to those five books, as to five loaves, two more little books, as two fish; praying you, Lord, beseeching you, that, seeing the effort of our duty and wish, you may give an effective work to a pious attempt; and since out of our obedience and affection we wish to match the number of those loaves and fish with the number of our books, may you transfer to these the power of that blessing; and you who reward our little writing with the gospel number, may you fill out the number too with the gospel fruit and grant these things as holy and wholesome food to all the peoples of your church, to every age and every sex. And if any have perhaps already been breathed upon by that deadly spirit of the venomous serpent, and with the state of their souls and minds corrupted are drawing pestilent diseases into their weakened veins, give to all the vigor of a sound mind, give full health of faith; so that, granting through these writings of our work the saving care of your gift to all, after the pattern of the food sanctified by you in the gospel, as by that eating you strengthened the hungry, so by this you may command the wasting to be healed.

Since, then, in all the earlier writings, I think, we have abundantly answered the heretic who denies God with the authority of divine testimonies, let us now come to the faith and force of the creed of Antioch, in which, since he himself was baptized and reborn, he must be refuted by his own professions and, so to speak, crushed by his own weapons. For this is the order: that, already overcome by holy testimonies, he should also be overcome, so to speak, by himself as witness. For there will be no need to act against him with other things when he has openly and plainly convicted himself. The text and faith of the creed of Antioch, then, is this: “I believe in one and only true God, the Father almighty, creator of all creatures visible and invisible; and in our Lord Jesus Christ, his only-begotten Son and firstborn of all creation, born of him before all ages and not made, true God of true God, homoousios with the Father, through whom the ages were framed and all things made; who for our sake came and was born of the virgin Mary, and was crucified under Pontius Pilate and buried, and on the third day rose again according to the Scriptures, and ascended into the heavens, and will come again to judge the living and the dead,” and the rest. In the creed, which speaks the faith of all the churches, I want to know which you prefer to follow, the authority of men or that of God? Although I will not deal with you sternly or severely, so as to give you a choice of one thing only and, permitting one, refuse the other: I give both, I grant both. And what am I saying, I grant? I drag you to both, even if you are unwilling. For if you wish both to be in the creed, you must be wise willingly; if you do not wish it, you must be compelled unwillingly. For the creed, as you know, took its name from a collecting. For what in Greek is called symbolos is called in Latin collatio. And it is called a collecting because the faith of the whole catholic law was collected into one by the Lord’s apostles, and whatever is poured out in immense abundance through the whole body of the divine volumes is all gathered in the creed in perfect brevity, according to that word of the apostle: “Completing and shortening a word in equity, because a shortened word will the Lord make upon the earth.” This, then, is the shortened word which the Lord made, gathering the faith of both his Testaments into a few words and enclosing the sense of all the Scriptures in brief, founding his own from his own and accomplishing the force of the whole law in the most compendious brevity; providing in this, as a most loving father, for the negligence or the inexperience of some of his sons, so that a mind, however simple and inexperienced, should not have to labor to grasp what it can easily hold even in memory.

You see, then, that the authority of God is in the creed: for “a shortened word the Lord made upon the earth.” But perhaps you are looking for that of men. Not even that is lacking; for God made it through men. For as he built up that immense abundance of the holy Scriptures chiefly through his patriarchs and prophets, so he established the creed through his apostles and bishops; and whatever he spread out there through his own with ample and overflowing abundance, the same he here shut up through his own in the fullest brevity. Nothing, then, is lacking in the creed, which, founded from the writings of God through the apostles of God, has in itself, as far as authority is concerned, whatever belongs either to men or to God; although even what was done through men must be counted God’s, because it must be believed to belong not so much to those through whom it was done as to him who did it. “I believe,” then, says the creed, “in one and only true God, the Father almighty, creator of all creatures visible and invisible; and in our Lord Jesus Christ, his only-begotten Son and firstborn of all creation, born of him before all ages and not made, true God of true God, homoousios with the Father, through whom the ages were framed and all things made; who for our sake came and was born of the virgin Mary, and was crucified under Pontius Pilate and buried, and on the third day rose again according to the Scriptures, and ascended into the heavens, and will come again to judge the living and the dead,” and the rest.

If you were a defender of the Arian or Sabellian heresy, and I were not using your own creed against you, I would still convict you by the authority of the holy testimonies, I would convict you by the voice of the law itself, I would convict you finally by the truth of the creed approved throughout the whole world. I would say that, even if you lacked understanding and sense, you ought at least to follow the consent of the human race, and not to value the perversity of a few wicked men above the faith of all the churches, which, founded by Christ and handed down by the apostles, would have to be considered nothing other than the voice and authority of God, having in itself the voice and mind of God. And what, finally, if I dealt with you so, what would you say? What would you answer? Would it not be this, I beg: that you were not so taught, not so trained; that something else was handed down to you by your parents, something else by your teachers and authorities; that you did not hear this in that conventicle of your fathers’ doctrine nor in the church of your profession; that, finally, the very text and wording of the creed handed down and taught to you contained something else; that you were baptized in it, reborn in it? Would you not say that you held what you had received, and lived in that in which you had learned you were regenerated? Saying these things, would you not, I ask, think you were using a very strong shield even against the truth? And truly, in a case however wicked, it would be no unsuitable defense, and one that would not absurdly give the cause of the error, if it did not join obstinacy to error. For since you would be holding what you had received from childhood, correction would have more to amend in your present error than severity to punish in the past. But now, since you were born in a catholic city, instructed in the catholic faith, regenerated by catholic baptism, can I deal with you as with an Arian or a Sabellian? Would that you had been one! I would grieve less over one born among evils than over one fallen from good things, less over faith never had than over faith lost, less over an old heretic than over a new apostate. For you would have brought less stain or plague upon the whole church, you would finally be less bitter to grief or grave as an example, if you could attack the church as a layman rather than as a bishop. So, as I said above, if you were a disciple and defender of the Sabellian or Arian or any other heresy, you would surely want to defend yourself by the example of your parents, the instruction of your teachers, the fellowship of your people, the faith of your creed. I ask nothing unjust of you, heretic, nothing unjust or hard: do this, born in the catholic faith, that you would have done for the sake of perversity. Hold the instruction of your parents, hold the faith of the church, hold the truth of the creed, hold the salvation of baptism. What sort of portent is in you, what sort of monster? Will you not do for yourself what others have done even for error? But we have gone far enough out to sea, and, following the force of our grief out of affection for a kindred city as if it were a favoring wind, while we were eager for the voyage, we have quite left the course of the straight way.