Homilies at the Council of Ephesus 71.0–72.14

Homily of Theodotus, bishop of Ancyra, delivered at Ephesus against Nestorius, in the church of John the Evangelist

What the physician is to our bodies, the priest is to our souls. For since error is a disease of souls and, when it lingers, brings on the death of punishment, the grace of the Spirit arranged the holy priesthood as a healing of souls; and it cut off the member seized by the disease, not without pity for that member, but sparing the other members. For since holding on to the rotten faith was bringing about the spread of the evil, it cuts off the member to cut short the evil; and this kind of treatment is not cruelty but therapy. For the physician weeps as he cuts off the member, but his care to spare the rest made the cutting a therapy. This kind of therapy is ancient and from above: so the saints cared for this all-venerable church. For the priest also has a sword, not to do harm but to heal. And grace, showing this from above, first revealed it to Jeremiah, saying: 'I have appointed you today over nations and over kingdoms, to root out and to dig down and to destroy, and to build up and to plant.' For piety is not planted unless evil is cut out. It is reasonable first to water, to use a farmer's care, to apply words of piety, to bring every kind of care to the member; but if the evil proves stronger than the care, cutting it out is the cure for those in such a state. For how could one care for those in such a state, who reproach God with the human things

and make grace a matter of reproach? What do you say? Tell me. 'I do not say,' he says, 'that God suffered.' If you look to the nature, you see rightly; but if you do away with the suffering altogether, you deny the economy. Do not reproach God who suffered, but look at the achievements of the sufferings. God came down into lowliness, not diminished in nature but bestowing grace. He remained what he was; he took on what he was not. He remained God because of his own nature; he became what you are because of his love for you. Do not, then, think the manner of his care an outrage; do not reproach the physician if he worked health in the lowliness of a body. For lowliness is not an outrage but a proof of love for humankind. He came down to you, not to remain below, but to lead you up to himself. Do not deny the descent, lest you lose the ascent. Accept the outrage that has brought forth glory for you. The nature was not outraged; rather, grace bestows good things on you. For your sake, the outraged servant, the Master

is outraged; he took up what is yours, since you abandoned what is his. We ran away from a good Master; we did not bear the grace given by the Master; we took the enjoyment of paradise as an advance; we wounded the law; we transgressed against the Lawgiver; we obeyed the enemy; we fell from honour. The runaway lived in this earthly place; he did not look up to the Master; pleasure held the fugitive down below; sin kept the runaway a prisoner; it despaired of our mind, as unable to look up to God. What then? Will my slowness deprive God of his finest possession, man? But the God of all did not endure this; for envy ought not to prevail over the Master's grace, nor ought God's gift to be defeated by the devil's plotting. What then does the Master do? He comes to the runaway, for the slave could not go to him. He comes to the servant, not in a master's dignity, not sending ahead an escort of angels, not setting phalanxes of archangels in motion, not moving fire, not shaking the elements; for that would have made the runaway flee. But he comes wishing to catch the fugitive, wanting to keep hold of his own possession. He does not frighten by what is seen, but calls to converse by the

lowliness of his appearance. He becomes a fellow servant, so that he may be shown to be Master. For this reason the great apostle too said: 'Let each of you have this mind which was also in Christ Jesus.' Here he says 'Jesus'. Whom, tell me? His mother gave the name to the infant: 'For you shall call his name Jesus.' Where is the one who divides Christ? Where is the one who has made our mystery a matter of a shared name, saying one Christ but supposing two, the one a slave and the other a master, the one suffering and the other not suffering? What benefit is there in the one name if two realities lie under it? 'Let each of you have this mind which was also in Christ Jesus.' He says 'Jesus' of this one who is seen, whom the virgin named so. 'Let each of you have this mind which was also in Christ Jesus.' For what did we think in Christ Jesus? 'Who, being in the form of God, did not count being equal with God a thing to be seized.' What is being said? One who has taken his freedom by seizure endures nothing servile, lest he bring his freedom into question. What then does he do? Since he was Master by nature, he did not count being equal with God a thing to be seized; for the economy did no harm to the Godhead. 'Who, being in the form of God, did not

count being equal with God a thing to be seized, but emptied himself.' Tell me the emptying of the Only-begotten. If he did not undergo human things, in what was he emptied? But when I say that God suffered, I say it keeping the nature impassible; for it was not a passible nature that attached suffering to God, but the union with what is passible. For since the loving Master resolved to suffer with his servant, yet had an impassible nature, by uniting to himself what is passible he fulfilled his purpose. So the Master came, so he came upon the fugitive: appearing as a fellow servant and doing good as Master, showing the form of a servant and bestowing the grace of a Master, hungering as a slave and making loaves spring forth as God, weary as a man and walking on the back of the sea as God, shrinking from the cross as a man. For by the sufferings he gave assurance of what was seen, and by the miracles he showed the one who was hidden. Thus, appearing as a man, he gathered us all into kinship with him. He set John over us as teacher, the son of thunder, who has bestowed on this metropolis the common treasure of the world, who set out the whole of piety in a single line: 'The Word,' he says, 'became flesh.' The one who is became flesh: he is by his nature, and he became by the economy. Through whom and with whom be glory and power to the Father, with the Holy Spirit, forever. Amen.

Homily of Theodotus, bishop of Ancyra, on the birth of the Saviour, read in the synod under Bishop Cyril

Splendid is the theme of the present feast, bringing common salvation to human beings; splendid too is the present assembly, receiving the grace with thanksgiving; and the grace is given abundantly to those who receive it with thanksgiving. For the measure of the gift is granted in proportion to the greatness of the thanksgiving of those who receive the grace, as when you receive a gift and give thanks to the giver: you have made no repayment for what you received. Receive the grace, then, you who have shown us this splendid festival. The theme of the feast is the manifestation of God to human beings, the sojourn of him who is ever present, the coming of him who fills all things, the visitation of him who sees all things. 'He came to his own,' it says, 'and his own did not receive him'; or rather, 'he was in the world, and the world came into being through him, and the world did not know him.' But this ignorance is not a charge against human beings. For because of the divinity of his nature God is beyond the reach of human reasonings; the mind of man is not of a nature to behold him. The divine nature escapes the mind of human beings; it is higher than our reasonings. We are therefore deprived of the knowledge of God because of his superior nature; and so that this may not happen, the invisible one takes on a visible nature, and the one not held by touch receives a body that can be touched. The invisible God becomes seen; the Word is touched; the only-begotten Child of God becomes kin to the slaves, so that the nature that surpasses man may not escape the knowledge of human beings.

And do not think the Son who was born a stranger to God. For long ago the coming of God was being rehearsed: he was known appearing ever in human figures, using materials that could be seen by us. Let the Jew, then, come forward into the midst; let him come forward who disbelieves the manifestation of God that appeared to human beings in human nature. Let him tell me: how did Moses see God? Did he see the invisible nature? By no means, for it is beyond the reach of human reasonings. How then did he see? Tell me: fire kindled from the bush and not destroying the bush. Why then do you disbelieve the one born of a virgin and not destroying her virginity? When you hear that God speaks from a bush and says to Moses, 'I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob,' and that Moses falls down and worships, you believe, reckoning not the fire that is seen but God who speaks; but when I mention a virgin womb, do you loathe it and turn away? What is lowlier, tell me: a bush, or a pure virgin womb, free of the passions of sin? Do you not know that the ancient things are a rehearsal of the newer ones, of those that have now come to pass? For the mysteries are prefigured through the old. That is why a bush is kindled, fire appears and does not do what fire does, nor does it punish. Do you not see the virgin in the bush? Do you not see in the fire the love for humankind of the one who came? The judge is among those being judged, and no judgment takes place; the judge is among the condemned, and nowhere is there punishment. The judge came, but not to judge, rather to teach; not to condemn, but to heal. Do you see how that gentle fire revealed the love for humankind shown here? Do not wonder if God, being God, is born through a virgin womb; for God considers nothing an outrage that procures salvation for human beings. But do not suppose God's nature so lowly that it could ever come within reach of outrage. For none of the lowly things he chose for our sake outrages that nature; he makes the lesser things his own in order to save our nature. When, then, lowly things do not outrage the nature of the blessed God and work salvation for human beings,

how will you say that the causes of our salvation have become occasions of outrage to God? God, then, was seen today through a virgin, and the virgin remained a virgin and became a mother. For the giver of incorruption does not work corruption; the maker of immortality destroyed nothing. And since Photinus says that the one born is a mere man, not saying that the birth is God's, and supposes that the man who came forth from the womb is divided from God, let him tell me now how a human nature, born through a virgin womb, kept the mother's virginity incorrupt. For no man's mother has remained a virgin. Do you see how what happened gives me a twofold understanding of the one born? If he was born as we are, he was a man; but if he kept his mother a virgin, the one born is recognized by those of sound mind as God. For God came to dwell in the world, not passing from place to place, but putting on my nature, and, as I said, he who is invisible in nature wished to be seen. So he did not have from his birth the beginning of being God, but of appearing to human beings. For since he was God, he chose to become man through his love for us, so that we might embrace the judge as a kinsman, so that we who have no boldness from our own good deeds might have confidence. For those brought before the judgment seat who cannot speak boldly from their own virtues gain boldness as from a kinsman of their own. What then? God sojourns as man, not exchanging one place for another, but showing the invisible nature as visible, seen as a man and appearing as kin to human beings, as the evangelist too proclaims, saying, 'The Word became flesh.'

'And how,' he says, 'did the Word become flesh? How is it possible for God the Word to become man?' Do you ask the manner of God's wonders? If the incomprehensibility of the Word were within our reach, it would not be a wonder but a natural matter; but if what happened is a wonder and a sign, leave the explanation to the wonder-working Master. That it happened I want you to know, and to reap by faith the gain from what happened; how it happened, leave to the one who did it. Do you trust the physician when he gives orders and not busy yourself about the manner of the treatment, entrusting your own salvation to his art? Nor does anyone else unskilled busy himself about the craftsman's manner; he recognizes what is done and leaves the manner to the art. Yet you seek the reasons for all the wonders God has worked, as though you needed the reasons so that you too might work the same wonders as God? But what I said before, I say now too: a thing whose reason we recognize is not, in its nature, a wonder or a sign. What I mean is something like this: a builder builds a house; we know the reason, we recognize the materials put together, we can describe what has been made, even if through lack of skill we are not able to do it ourselves. The Only-begotten fashioned eyes for the man blind from birth out of clay: this is beyond our reason; it is called a wonder, not being searched out by human reasonings; it is called a sign, having happened beyond the usual nature. And that it happened we know, but we cannot tell the manner. For from clay pottery and brick are made; the fine make of eyes is not fashioned from it, thin membranes are not formed, the variety of sight is not composed, the exact roundness with such fair colour is not turned. Clay is not by nature able to be raised to the fine make of eyes. So what the nature of the earth does not admit (for it is not of a nature to admit the form of an eye), this form it received when the wonder-worker drew its nature toward his own will, not himself serving the reason of nature. No longer, then, fall back on the weakness of human nature, and do not say: How did the nature of man contain God? How did God become man? How did God the Word become visible flesh? But believe that he did become so,

and leave knowing the manner to the one who did it. And if you wish to make the matter clear by an example too, I will show you how the bodiless is embodied, the invisible is seen, the intangible is touched, not changed in its own nature, but taking on a form that is seen and touched. This spoken word, I mean that of human beings, which we use to associate with one another and to interpret our thoughts to one another, is a word not seen, nor touched by the hand, but only sounding in the hearing. But when I bring the spoken word as an example of the subsistent God the Word, do not think that I call God the Word a spoken word: away with it! For the Only-begotten is called the Word because the divine Scripture is interpreting the impassibility of his generation, since the mind of human beings too begets its word impassibly. That is why the divine Scripture sometimes addresses him as Son of the Father, sometimes names him Word, and elsewhere calls him radiance, saying each of these names of him so that you may understand what is said of Christ without blasphemy. For at different times it used different titles for him, wishing to make its teaching fitting for the glory of God.

What I mean is something like this. It calls the Only-begotten Son of the Father, wishing to present to his glory that he is of the same essence. For since your son is born of the same nature as you, the word of Scripture, wishing to show one essence of Father and Son, calls the Only-begotten, begotten from him, Son of the Father. Then, since birth and a son among us give an impression of the passion that attends birth, it also addresses this Son as Word, showing by this name the impassibility of his generation. But since one who has become a father, as a man, is admittedly shown to be older than his own son, the very title leading us to think of the father before the son, so that you may not suppose this in the case of the divine nature too, but may understand the Only-begotten as coexisting with the Father always, it calls the Only-begotten the radiance of the Father. For radiance is born from the sun, but is in no way thought to be later than the sun; rather, from the moment there is a sun, from then we understand the radiance too as born from the sun. Let 'radiance', then, show you that the Son always coexists with the Father; let 'Word' show the impassibility of the generation; let 'Son' make known that he is of the same essence.

But let us return to the subject, make plain the manifestation of God the Word born today, and show by an example how what by nature is not seen becomes seen, and what is not touched, because of its bodiless nature, is found to be touched. This word, then, which we utter, which we use in our conversations with one another, is a bodiless word, not appearing to sight, not touched by touch. But when the word puts on letters and characters, it becomes visible, it is grasped by sight, it is touched by touch. Suppose someone speaking to another: is the word that goes forth seen? Do we touch with the hand the word that is poured out? But if you write on paper what he said, what you did not see before you later see, and the form of the word that you did not touch before, you touch through the paper and the letters. Why? Because the bodiless word has put on the body of the paper and the shape of the characters. Since, then, the example has become clear and you have been reminded by an example drawn from ordinary experience, come, let us show how the only-begotten Son of God, God the Word, who before the ages was with the Father, being bodiless in nature, made human nature his own and was later born through a virgin, not taking a beginning of being God, but taking a beginning of appearing as man. For do not say: 'Since the Only-begotten was begotten of the Father, how was he born again of a virgin?' He was begotten of the Father by nature; he was born of a virgin by the economy; the former as God, the latter as man. For your word too is an offspring of your mind; but when you wish to set this word which your mind begot in characters and letters and want to imprint it on paper, you write the letters with your hand, and in a way you give birth to the word again through the hand. It did not take the beginning of its being when it was written by hand, nor did it come into being when the hand imprinted the letters; it was born of the mind, but the word received the beginning of its appearing from the hand

imprinting the letters. Since, then, the example is clear and the image most familiar, come, let us fit the image to the original. Here, the mind: there, understand the Father. Here you know a word born from the mind: there, understand an essential and subsistent Word begotten of the Father. Here you see a hand bringing forth a word through letters: there, understand a virgin bringing forth the Word through her body, not giving the Godhead a beginning through the birth, God forbid! but making God appear to human beings by his becoming man. He became what I am; necessarily he was born as I am, choosing with my nature necessarily my birth as well. That is why God the Word made birth his own, embraced the virgin as his mother, and came through a womb adorned with virginity. For God loathes none of the things he fashioned, since none of his works was unworthy of him. All things are good and very good, if we see them as the Fashioner saw them when they had been made: 'God saw all the things he had made, and behold, they were very good.' Look at all things with eyes free of passion, and like God you see them as very good. Banish passion, and you will know the nobility of what was made.

What wonder, then, if God made his dwelling in his own work and house? But you say it is worthy of him to dwell in heaven, and you think man an unworthy abode for him, judging things not by the truth of reasons but by passion and prejudice. For which is higher, tell me, heaven or man? Which is more precious to God, the sun or man? Do not, I beg you, attend to the brightness of the elements, nor prefer that nature for its fair colour, nor be dazzled by the leaping radiance of the sun, nor by the fact that I am clothed in skin and flesh, as the divine Job says; but consider the nobility of the rational soul. Look at the construction of man and admire the creature. It has a mind able to master and rule all creatures; it received hands that serve the mind's wisdom, instruments that fashion every kind of art; alone of all created things it has become free of necessity; man alone God created master of his own will. Do you not see the sun running compelled courses? Do you not see its uniform motion? Why? Because it has not become master of its own will. But you go forth free; you do what you will; you have no necessity thrusting you by force; you have been made free in soul. The sun is a slave of necessity, but man is free in his will. Which, then, is better, tell me, the slave or the free? The one under the yoke of necessity or the one released from all necessity? It is nothing wonderful or strange

if God dwelt in man, whom he embraced as his own image as soon as he fashioned him. For God showed his purpose for man at once, at the very beginning of creation, taking dust from the earth and fashioning him, and making him an image of his own Godhead. Why then did he fashion from so lowly a nature one whom he intended to honour by his construction? Why did he not make man by taking from the brightness of the sun, but forms him from earth and dust, the element that lies below and is trodden underfoot? For what reason, do you wish to learn? Since he intended to honour man with the image, he gives him a lowly nature, so that the excess of honour might not lift man up into folly, so that when he is honoured above his nature he might be humbled by the memory of his nature and recognize the greatness of the honour as due not to his own worth but to the grace of the giver. So this too was the love for humankind of the one who constructed him: that the image of God should have its nature from the earth. For it had its nature as a pledge

of modest thinking. So man is a noble creature, even if he was later outraged by the passions that crept in. For do not look at him after he stumbled, but consider the nobility of the image of God before the transgression of the law. Why then do you belittle the fallen one, forgetting his first construction and not reckoning his ancient honour, which God gave back to him again with great munificence by uniting his own image to himself? Nothing, then, happened unbecoming his love for humankind. For it is no outrage for a good master to share the servile things of a slave for the servant's benefit. The good one is not outraged by these things; rather, what he is is made known through such things. And do not wonder at the matter: even now, if you make yourself a house of God, he dwells in you too, though not as in Christ; for 'in Christ dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.' But O the wonder! All the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily in one, and fills all things and surpasses creation, being whole in one and separated from none of the creatures. And let what is said not seem impossible to you. For I too now utter a word: this word is in one, and the word has come to be in all; one has contained the whole word, and the word is not circumscribed by the multitude. If, then, a thing that comes into being and perishes dwells whole in one and comes to be in all, why does it seem a wonder to you if God both dwelt whole in a man and is found in all? [12] The theme of today's festival, then, is that God became man, choosing human things to give divine things, making the passions his own to grant impassibility, undergoing death to bestow immortality. And he acquired the passions of human beings as his own, not changing his nature, but making this his own by his will; and he does this very fittingly, having resolved to save man. For what reason, then, has he made the passions of human beings his own? Since he wished to destroy passion by passion and to abolish death by death, and wished to wrestle down like by like, he makes the cross his own, makes the blow his own, has made the bond his own, so that the passions, having become God's, might receive authority against the passions. For God's nature has not been wronged (for it did not receive the passions by any change of its own), and the passions receive from God strength against their like. For at last death, as having become God's, abolishes death, and by dying he dissolves the tyranny of death, since he was both God and man. For the Jews did not crucify a mere man, nor did they nail only the visible nature; they directed their outrages against the God in it, who had made the passions of the united nature his own. [13] And so that this too may become clear to you, let us bring the discussion back to the example given at the beginning. Let it be supposed

that a king utters a word and has it imprinted by letters on some paper, and sends to the cities the so-called sacra, a word clothed in paper and letters, granting freedom or bringing other royal gifts to those in need. But let some faithless and disobedient person, an enemy of the city and a foe of the emperor, receive this sacra, as it is called in the language of the Italians, take the paper, and tear it up. What was torn here? Tell me: the paper alone, or the royal word too? Indeed, if only the paper was torn, what was destroyed was cheap, and the one who tore it was not liable, or liable only for five obols. But he pays the ultimate penalty: he is punished and led away to death, not as having damaged paper only, but as having torn the royal word. And yet the emperor's word is impassible, neither taken in the hands in its own nature nor able to be torn; yet it too was torn, having made the passion of the paper and the letters its own. Do you see how the impassible receives passion when it shares a passible nature? For the word was not torn in its own nature, and yet it received the passion of the paper and of the

letters. Let the Jew, then, not take courage as having crucified a mere man. For what appeared was paper, but what was hidden in it was a Word royal by nature, not brought forth through a tongue. For the Only-begotten is called Word, not a spoken word but an essential and subsistent one, suffering nothing in his own nature, being the impassible Word, yet making his own the sufferings of what appeared. And as the royal word itself received the material of the letters, and the passion of the paper became the word's own, so the only-begotten Word of God has made his own the passions of the one who was nailed. Therefore, as the one who damaged an imperial sacra is led away to death as having torn the emperor's word, so the Jew who crucified what appeared pays the penalty, having extended his outrage to God the Word himself. For God thereafter avenges what was done as his own passion. But what has been said is enough, since we must take thought for your memory too; for an abundance of words overflowing the understanding of the hearers makes the hearer forget what was said. May it be, by the grace of God, that you embrace what has been said in your memory, benefit others from it, and in return inherit the kingdom of heaven; which may we all obtain by the grace of Christ, to whom be glory and power for ever and ever. Amen.