Letters (first part: Migne letters 1-55) 42–45

It is fitting to share with your Holiness everything useful to the churches and whatever comes up, so to speak, day by day, so that rumours saying one thing in place of another may not trouble the most God-fearing bishops there. Those from the East, then, have written asking for communion [and making their faith plain], saying plainly both that the holy Virgin is Mother of God, and that the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, is one, ineffably begotten of the Father before every age, and the same one in the last times man from a woman; and that his person is one, and not two. Then, further down, they add something else that troubled some who are not very able to understand, and they were thought not to be wholly clean of the prattle of Nestorius. My lord, the most God-fearing bishop Acacius of Melitene, wrote me this. It was necessary to compose a rather long letter and to explain the expressions of those from the East at which some were scandalized. I have sent you a copy of the letter, so that, if any there are found to have suffered the same, they may look into it and know the truth. I know that in doing this too I have done what was unnecessary, since your Perfection is fully able by yourself to explain everything and to bring the benefit of your understanding to those held by ignorance.

For the sake of the peace of the churches, and so that they may not be cut off from one another in discord, concessions are not without profit. For it is likely that some, if not received into communion, may out of weariness turn, even against their will, to something else. For either heresies are born and schisms follow, or else there are continual disturbances, when men do not bear being long rebuked in their accustomed ways. Seeing this, I was very glad when those from the East hastened to us and sought communion, especially since it came about on good grounds, the most pious and God-beloved emperor having written about it; for the unanimity of the churches has become a necessary concern of his Serenity. Considering this, let your Perfection too be willing to do what befits you and whatever you see to be for the benefit of the churches of God there. I have written about the matter, considering what is expedient; it is for your Perfection to bring it to completion. For it is better to receive those who repent than to have them, through shamelessness, added to the party of those who have chosen to hold the views of Nestorius.

Since, being all-wise and all-perfect, you ordered some of my little works to be sent, and you put up with a stammering tongue, I have ventured to send for the present four books, containing much discussion of the dispensation of our Saviour from the Old Testament writings. I have also added what I wrote against the blasphemies of Nestorius; though your Perfection is fully able to benefit both us and all those there, I was led to this out of love. Be so good as to read them, correct anything that has been overlooked, and show them to the other brothers as well. The books are these: one book on Genesis; two books on worship in spirit and truth; the reply to what Theodoret and Andrew wrote on the chapters; one book on the incarnation, against the blasphemies of Nestorius.

Memorandum from archbishop Cyril to Eulogius, presbyter, who was staying in Constantinople.

Cyril, bishop of Alexandria, to Eulogius: greeting.

Some are attacking the exposition made by the Easterners and say, “Why did the bishop of Alexandria put up with them, or even praise them, when they speak of two natures?” And those who hold the views of Nestorius say that he too thinks so, carrying off those who do not know the exact truth. To those who find fault one must say this: we must not flee from and reject everything the heretics say; for they confess many things that we too confess. For instance, when the Arians say that the Father is creator and Lord of all, does it follow that we must flee from these confessions? So too with Nestorius: even if he says two natures, signifying the difference of the flesh and of God the Word (for the nature of the Word is one thing and the nature of the flesh another), he does not go on to confess the union with us. For we, having united these, confess one Christ, one Son, the same one Lord; and thereafter one nature of God the Word, incarnate. It is like what may be said of an ordinary man too. He is of different natures, I mean of body and soul; and reason and contemplation know the difference; but having united them, we then make one nature of a man. So to know the difference of the natures is not to cut the one Christ into two.

But since all those from the East think that we orthodox follow the opinions of Apollinarius and hold that a mixing or confusion took place (for they themselves use such words), as though God the Word had been changed into the nature of flesh and the flesh turned into the nature of Godhead, we granted them, not to divide the one Christ into two, God forbid, but only to confess that there took place neither confusion nor mixing, but that the flesh was flesh, as taken from a woman, and the Word, as begotten of the Father, was Word; yet that Christ, and Son, and Lord is one, according to John's saying, since the Word became flesh. And we prepared them to attend to the reading of the letter of the blessed pope Athanasius. For there, since some were contending and saying that God the Word made himself a body out of his own nature, he insists again and again that the body was not consubstantial with the Word. And if not consubstantial, then the natures from which the one and only Christ is understood to be are certainly one and another. Let them not be ignorant of this either: where union is named, what is signified is not the coming together of one thing, but of two or more, different from each other in nature. If, then, we say union, we confess that it is of flesh animated with an intelligent soul and of the Word; and those who say two natures understand it so. But once the union is confessed, the things united no longer stand apart from one another; rather, there is thereafter one Son, one nature of his, since the Word has been made flesh.

This is what those from the East confessed, even if they were a little obscure about the wording. For those who confess that the only-begotten Word begotten of God the Father was himself also born according to the flesh of a woman, that the holy Virgin is Mother of God, that his person is one, and that there are not two Sons or two Christs but one, how do they agree with the opinions of Nestorius? Nestorius in his expositions pretends to say that the Son is one and the Lord one, but he refers the sonship and the lordship to God the Word alone; and when he comes to the dispensation, he again speaks of the man from the woman by himself, as another Lord, conjoined by the dignity of equal honour. For to say that God the Word is named Christ because he has conjunction with Christ, how is it not plainly to speak of two Christs, if Christ has conjunction with Christ, as one with another? But those from the East have said nothing of the kind; they divide only the sayings. And they divide them in this way: they say that some befit God, others are human, and others are made common, as having at once what befits God and what is human, yet all spoken of one and the same; and not, as Nestorius does, assigning some specially to God the Word and others to the one from the woman as to another Son. It is one thing to know the difference of sayings and another to divide them between two persons, as to one and another. The letter to Acacius especially, which begins, “Greeting one another is a sweet and admirable thing for brothers,” contains a good defence on all points.

You have very many letters in the case, which you must deliver diligently. Bring to the most magnificent chamberlain also the two books I sent: one against the blasphemies of Nestorius, the other containing the proceedings of the synod against Nestorius and those who hold his views, and the refutations I wrote against those who wrote against the chapters, two bishops, Andrew and Theodoret. At its end the same book also has brief expositions of the dispensation in Christ, very good and able to help. Likewise bring him five of the letters bound in leather: one of the blessed pope Athanasius to Epictetus, another from us to John, and two to Nestorius, the short one and the long one, and the one to Acacius. For he asked us for them.

By the same, to the most blessed Succensus, bishop of Diocaesarea in the province of Isauria. On the faith, first letter.

I read the memorandum sent by your Holiness and was greatly delighted that, although you are able to help us and others out of your very great love of learning, you are pleased to urge us to write down what we have in mind and what we supposed you also think. We think, then, about the dispensation of our Saviour what the holy fathers before us thought. For reading their labours, we order our own minds so as to follow after them and to bring in nothing new to the correctness of the doctrines. Since your Perfection asks whether one should speak of two natures in Christ or not, we thought we should speak to this.

A certain Diodore, who had at one time been an opponent of the Spirit, joined, as they say, the church of the orthodox. Having put off, as he thought, the stain of the Macedonian heresy, he fell into another sickness. For he thought and wrote that the one born of the seed of David from the holy virgin and mother of God is one Son by himself, and that the Word from God the Father is specially another Son. Hiding the wolf, as it were, under a sheep's fleece, he pretends to speak of one Christ, referring the name to the Word alone, begotten of God the Father as only-begotten Son, and assigning it, as he himself says, by way of grace; and he calls the one from the seed of David a son, as united, he says, to the true Son; united, not as we hold, but by dignity alone, by authority, and by equality of honour. Nestorius became his disciple, and, darkened by his books, pretends to confess one Christ, and Son, and Lord, but he too divides the one into two, and separately, saying that a man was conjoined to God the Word by sharing a name, by equality of honour [by rank], by dignity. And indeed he separates the sayings about Christ in the gospel and apostolic proclamations, and says that some must be fitted to the man, namely the human ones, and others befit God the Word alone, namely those befitting God. And since he separates them in many ways and sets apart, specially as man, the one born of the holy Virgin, and likewise specially and apart as Son the Word from God the Father, for this reason he says that the holy Virgin is not Mother of God but rather mother of a man.

We do not hold that things are so, but we have been taught by divine Scripture and the holy fathers to confess one Son and Christ and Lord, that is, the Word from God the Father, begotten of him before the ages in a manner befitting God and ineffably, and in the last times of the age the same one born for us according to the flesh of the holy Virgin; and since she bore God made man and incarnate, for this reason we also name her Mother of God. There is, then, one Son, one Lord Jesus Christ, both before the incarnation and after the incarnation. For it was not that the Word from God the Father was one Son and the one from the holy Virgin another; but the very one who is before the ages is believed to have been born also according to the flesh of a woman: not as though his Godhead received a beginning of being, or was called into a beginning of existence through the holy Virgin, but rather, as I said, being the Word before the ages, he is said to have been born of her according to the flesh. For the flesh was his own, just as each of us has his own body.

But since some entangle us with the opinions of Apollinarius and say, “If you speak of one Son by an exact and mixed union, the Word from God the Father made man and incarnate, perhaps you have also resolved to imagine and think that a mixing, or confusion, or blending of the Word with the body took place, or a change of the body into the nature of Godhead,” therefore, repelling the slander very wisely, we say that the Word from God the Father, incomprehensibly and in a way that cannot be told, united to himself a body animated with an intelligent soul and came forth a man from a woman, having become as we are not by a change of nature but rather by the good pleasure of the dispensation. For he willed to become man, not casting off being God by nature. But even though he came down into our measures and bore the form of a servant, even so he remained in the supremacy of the Godhead and in his natural lordship. Uniting, then, the Word from God the Father to the holy flesh possessing an intelligent soul, ineffably and beyond understanding, without confusion, without change, without alteration, we confess one Christ and Son and Lord, the same one God and man, not one and another, but one and the same, existing and understood as both. Therefore at one time he speaks as man, by the dispensation and humanly, and at another, as God, he makes his statements with authority befitting God.

We also say this: examining skilfully the manner of the dispensation with the flesh and looking closely into the mystery, we see that the Word from God the Father became man and was made flesh, and did not fashion that sacred body out of his own divine nature, but rather took it from the Virgin Mary. Otherwise how did he become man, unless he bore our body? Considering, then, as I said, the manner of the incarnation, we see that two natures came together with each other in an unbreakable union, without confusion and without change; for the flesh is flesh and not Godhead, even though it became God's flesh; and likewise the Word is God and not flesh, even though he made the flesh his own by the dispensation. When, then, we consider this, we do no wrong to the concurrence into unity by saying that it took place from two natures; but after the union we do not divide the natures from each other, nor do we cut the one and undivided into two Sons, but we say one Son and, as the fathers have said, one nature of God the Word, incarnate. So, as far as concerns thought and merely seeing with the eyes of the soul in what way the Only-begotten became man, we say that the natures united are two, but that Christ and Son and Lord is one, the Word of God the Father made man and incarnate.

And, if you please, let us take as an example our own composition, by which we are men. For we are composed of soul and body, and we see two natures, one that of the body, another that of the soul; but from both, by union, there is one man. And because a man is composed of two natures, one must not think that the one man is two men, but one and the same by composition, as I said, the one from soul and body. For if we do away with the fact that the one and only Christ is from two different natures, being undivided even after the union, those who fight against right belief will say, “If the whole is one nature, how did he become man, or what kind of flesh did he make his own?”

Since I found in the memorandum a statement to this effect, that after the resurrection the holy body of Christ, the Saviour of us all, passed over, it says, into Godhead, so that the whole is Godhead only, I thought I should speak to this too. The blessed Paul, explaining the reasons for the incarnation of the only-begotten Son of God, writes at one time, “For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh, so that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit”; and at another, “Since the children have shared in blood and flesh, he himself likewise partook of the same, so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives. For surely it is not angels that he takes hold of, but he takes hold of the seed of Abraham. Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect.” We say, then, that since human nature suffered corruption from the transgression of Adam, and our mind was tyrannized by the pleasures of the flesh, that is, by its innate motions, it became necessary for the salvation of us on earth that the Word of God should become man, so that he might make his own human flesh, subject to corruption and sick with love of pleasure; and, since he is life and life-giving, might abolish the corruption in it and rebuke its innate motions, namely those toward love of pleasure. For so the sin in it could be put to death. We remember too that the blessed Paul called the innate motion in us the law of sin. So since human flesh became the Word's own, it has ceased to be subject to corruption; and since, as God, he did no sin, having made it his own and shown it to be his own, as I said, it has ceased also to be sick with love of pleasure. And the only-begotten Word of God did not accomplish this for himself (for he is always what he is), but clearly for us. For if we were subjected to the evils from the transgression in Adam, the things in Christ will certainly come to us too, that is, incorruption and the putting to death of sin.

So he became man; he did not assume a man, as Nestorius thinks. And so that he might be believed to have become man, though he remained what he was, namely God by nature, for this reason he is said to have hungered, to have grown tired from the journey, and to have endured sleep, trouble, grief, and the other human and blameless passions. And again, to assure those who saw him that, besides being man, he is also true God, he worked divine signs, rebuking seas, raising the dead, and accomplishing the other marvels. He also endured a cross, so that, suffering death in the flesh and not in the nature of the Godhead, he might become the firstborn from the dead, make for human nature the way to incorruption, and, despoiling Hades, set free the souls imprisoned there. After the resurrection it was the very body that had suffered, yet no longer having human weaknesses in itself. For we say that it is no longer capable of hunger or weariness or anything else of the kind, but is now incorruptible; and not only this, but also life-giving; for it is the body of life, that is, of the Only-begotten; and it has been made resplendent with glory most befitting God, and is understood to be God's body. So if someone calls it divine, as one calls a man's body human, he would not miss the fitting reasoning. Hence, I think, the most wise Paul also said, “Even if we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know him so no longer.” For, being God's own body, as I said, it surpassed all things human. But a body from the earth cannot undergo a change into the nature of Godhead, for that is impossible; otherwise we would be charging the Godhead with being something that has come to be, and with having taken into itself something that is not its own by nature. For it is equally absurd to say that the body was changed into the nature of Godhead and to say that the Word was changed into the nature of flesh, that is, that the Godhead passed over into the nature of flesh. As the latter is impossible, for he is unchangeable and unalterable, so is the former. For it is not possible that any of the creatures should be able to pass over into the substance or nature of Godhead; and the flesh too is a creature. So we say that the body of Christ is divine, since it is the body of God, adorned with ineffable glory, incorruptible, holy, life-giving; but that it was changed into the nature of Godhead, none of the holy fathers either thought or said, nor do we hold so.

Let your Holiness not be unaware that our father of blessed memory, Athanasius, who was in his time bishop of Alexandria, when certain questions had been stirred up at that time, wrote a letter to Epictetus, bishop of Corinth, full of all orthodoxy. Since Nestorius was refuted by it too, and those who defended the right faith, by reading it, put to shame those who wished to think as he did, the latter, having given up before the refutations it provided, devised something wicked and worthy of heretical impiety. They corrupted the letter, taking some things away and adding others, and published it, so that that celebrated man too might seem to think in agreement with Nestorius and those around him. It was necessary, then, so that some there too might not show it in its corrupted form, to take a copy from our copies and send it to your Reverence. For the most reverent and God-fearing bishop of Emesa, Paul, when he came to Alexandria, raised the matter, and was found to have a copy of the letter, but one corrupted and falsified by the heretics; so he asked that a copy from our copies be sent to those at Antioch, and we have sent it. Following everywhere the orthodox teachings of the holy fathers, we have composed a book against the doctrines of Nestorius, and another, since some had slandered the force of the chapters; and I have sent these to your Reverence, so that, if there are any other brothers of the same faith and soul as ours who have been carried off by some people's prattle and think that we have changed our mind about what was said against Nestorius, they may be refuted by reading them and learn that we rightly and correctly rebuked him as one gone astray; and now no less we press on everywhere, fighting against his blasphemies. Your Perfection, who is able to understand still greater things, will help us both by writing and by praying.